The colorful career of San Francisco-born Joseph Zemansky (1877-1953) spanned three industries and two countries. After childhood in Sacramento, he spent several decades in California before settling in Nevada.

Here are 10 highlights of Zemansky’s professional life and experiences:

Gambling

1) Zemansky helped establish and operate the immensely popular Agua Caliente Casino and Hotel in Tijuana, Mexico, which opened in June 1928. Along with four others, he was part of the Mexican Development Co., the group behind the resort and initial owners of its gambling concession.

2) Zemansky and his Mexican Development Co. partners came under Internal Revenue Bureau (IRB) scrutiny in 1930 for not reporting for tax purposes their share of $550,000 ($8.9 million today) that the group’s head Wirt Bowman divvied between them. The likely skimmed money had come from Bowman’s records-less Agua Caliente “concession fund,” or bribe fund more accurately. When tax men questioned the quartet, three denied ever receiving any money, and the other two, Zemansky included, claimed they’d only borrowed money from the fund. Lacking proof, the IRB dropped the issue.

3) Zemansky had dealings with the Mafia. He and his brother-in-law Barney Morris opened a bingo club in 1934 in Kansas City, Missouri called Club Fortune. The two owned half, and the Kansas City Combine boss John Lazia owned the other half.

4) The Mob allegedly victimized Zemansky. When Lazia was murdered, his successor, Charles Carrollo, assumed Lazia’s 50 percent of Club Fortune. Then in 1938, Carrollo forced Zemansky and Morris to sell him their half for a ridiculous price, $1 according to one report, $10,000 according to another. (The club generated about $60,000 a month, about $1.1 million today!) The transaction took place, but Zemansky asserted Carrollo hadn’t coerced him and Morris into it and the deal had been profitable.

5) Zemansky debuted another Club Fortune in 1937, this one a nightclub in Reno, Nevada with a casino, cocktail lounge and entertainment, which became known for its large, tango offering. After a successful, 10-year run, Zemansky closed the business in 1947 when the property lease expired.

“At the time it was the outstanding night spot in Western Nevada, featuring an unusual decorative theme of potted palms,” wrote the Reno Evening Gazette (Jan. 12, 1953).

Other Business

6) Zemansky’s other businesses included: Diamond Palace, a pawn shop and jewelry store he and his brothers ran for years, and the House of Props, which rented furnishings, sets and objects to movie studios and theater companies, both in Los Angeles, as well as Heaney’s Jewelry & Loan Co. in Reno, co-owned with George Heaney.

7) Zemansky discovered and, for several years, managed boxer Jack Johnson who went on to become a world heavyweight champion.

Crime

8) Zemansky was robbed twice at his Los Angeles home, in 1933 and 1934. The second time, two masked gunmen bound Zemansky, his wife and nephew with neckties, made Zemansky open the vault and stole $5,000 ($100,000 today) in jewels and $200 ($4,000) in cash.

9) Zemansky was arrested in Reno in August 1945 for leaving open Club Fortune’s basement door, thereby violating a city ordinance. His punishment was a $10 ($150 today) fine.

10) Zemansky passed away from a heart attack at age 75 on January 12, 1953. He was in San Bernardino at the time with his wife, visiting her sister on their way to Palm Springs.

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More so than craps, roulette, 21 and slots, all on offer, tango enraptured gamblers at Club Fortune, then “the outstanding night spot in Western Nevada,” according to the Reno Evening Gazette (Jan. 12, 1953).

Tango was “the Reno name for the well-known bean game,” as described in the newspaper column, “In the Biggest Little City …,” (Nevada State Journal, Jan. 17). The game had originated in Italy as lotto and had made its way to North America.

The name tango resulted from an incorrect pronunciation of the Spanish word “tengo,” which in the English language translates to “I have (it).” The game also was called beano, named after the dried beans players used to mark their card. Edwin S. Lowe commercialized the game as bingo in the U.S. around 1930.

Despite the various names, all of the versions generally were similar in nature to one another and to what we know today as bingo. In the 1930s and 1940s, players could win a bundle.

“If the house is good, you may win as much as $50” ($950 today), the columnist noted.

Tango With A Twist

Club Fortune’s tango was innovative. When it came to choosing the numbers for each round, the house had its own unique method. It didn’t involve randomly drawn numbers from a hat or numbered balls from a hopper. 

Instead, patrons took turns tossing a baseball into a cart equipped with 80 numbered holes. A worker moved the cart back and forth in the narrow passageway between the two long tango tables, together accommodating 104 players, so they could shoot for a hole right from their seat.

When the ball landed in a hole, a large electronic board automatically displayed its number, and a game attendant announced it. Patrons who had that very number on their tango card marked it. Rather than the typical dried bean or corn kernel, Club Fortune had its guests use markers it had specially made. The first player to fill their card with called numbers won the round.

“The patrons throwing baseballs into the compartments added excitement to the game because customers felt that their skill in throwing the ball could influence the outcome of the game and help them win,” wrote Dwayne Kling in The Rise of the Biggest Little City: An Encyclopedic History of Reno Gaming 1931-1981.

More Than A Casino

Owner Robert Feder debuted Club Fortune on May 28, 1937 after spending about $125,000 ($2.2 million today) on remodeling, furnishings, equipment, gambling licenses and advanced rent. He’d divided the space, on the corner of Second and Center streets,* previously a store, into two large, high-ceilinged, connected rooms. The one to the west, boasting rosewood paneling and blue carpeting, contained the games of chance, a bar and dining room. The east room housed the tango salon.

Along with gambling, the hotspot, with the tagline “Come As You Are,” provided gourmet cuisine. One night’s dinner entrées included grilled spring lamb chops au cresson and roast prime ribs of beef au jus with Yorkshire pudding. The dining staff provided food for the numerous celebrations held there, including breakfasts, luncheons and holiday, anniversary, birthday and other fêtes.

Evening entertainment was routine and featured top names, such as Liberace, Sammy Davis, Jr. and Blossom Sealy.

“In Reno … there is one very gorgeous and beautiful new place to dine, dance, drink and gamble to your heart’s desire (provided your money holds out) — Club Fortune it is called. As an example of elaborate lighting and decoration and lavish expenditure there are few equals in the west, especially,” wrote Charles P. Squires in his newspaper column “Observations.”

Five months after opening, Joseph and Sadie Zemansky replaced Feder. They’d just moved to Reno from Southern California, where Joseph had run a chain of jewelry stores and was an investor in the Agua Caliente Casino and Hotel in Mexico.

After a decade of running Club Fortune, the Zemanskys closed it in early 1947 when the lease for the space expired.

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* Today, the Club Cal-Neva is located there.

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