Rhyolite, Nevada in the 1920s

1908

Johnny-Behind-the-Gat bet more than he should’ve.

He was a prospector and miner said to have little common sense, a big temper and a penchant for using his weapon to solve disputes.

John Cyty (his real name), in a 12-hour roulette game, bet and lost $75,000 worth of shares (a roughly $2 million value today) of his company, the Big Bell Mine Co. in Death Valley, California. In doing so, he ceded control of the business to C.E. Jones, the owner of the Stock Exchange gambling rooms in Rhyolite, Nevada, just across the border from the mine.

Photo from Utah State University’s Special Collections, Merrill-Cazier Library

Chuck-a-luck cage

Today/1888

A “tinhorn gambler,” according to several dictionaries, refers to a game of chance operator who pretends to have money, ability or influence. The phrase is said to come from people who set up chuck-a-luck games with few funds and a cheap metal (versus leather) chute, called a horn — individuals whom faro dealers disparaged as being petty.

Yet, a 1908 Las Vegas Age article explains that “tin horn gambler” describes a player rather than operator, a low roller specifically, and originated in 1888 by Honorable James Orndorff who, while dealing in a gambling house on the Comstock Lode, told a patron betting small amounts, “You’re cheaper than a tin horn.”

1908

Two deputy sheriffs in the mining camp of Rawhide, Nevada,* were on the take. For a regularly paid fee, they allowed establishments to operate legal games without a license and/or run banned ones as well.

Sometimes they allowed gambling houses that paid heavy license fees on some games to conduct others without paying for a license. The lawmen squeezed these monies from the operators and the saloon owners where such activities occurred.

One proprietor who benefitted from the arrangement was George “Tex” Rickard, owner of The Northern. He paid $760 per quarter for licenses for most of the games in his club. However, he offered other games, both unlawful (stud poker and poker) and lawful (panguingue), without the required legal papers.

This grafting had taken place since Rawhide’s beginning in December 1906, when a prospector discovered a rich gold-silver deposit nearby.

When the Reno newspaper exposed the scheme in early 1908, the state police investigated, discovering “one of the greatest systems of graft ever perpetrated in this state,” noted the Reno Evening Gazette (April 11, 1908). When they learned Rickard refused to obtain the licenses to square with the gaming law, they threatened him with arrest.

The Legal Fallout

Within days, Rickard and his partner were taken to jail and charged with running gambling without licenses.

Two weeks passed before consequences from the graft probe’s findings played out. The district attorney ordered state police officers to collect gambling license fees from Rickard (whose case had been dismissed in the interim) and others operating similarly. The allegedly guilty Rawhide deputy sheriffs were fired and indicted on extortion charges.

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*The Nevada town was about 55 miles southeast of Fallon and 35 miles northeast of Hawthorne.

Sources