Tango game, Las Vegas, Nevada

1946

Some Las Vegas, Nevada casinos handed out women’s nylons as slot machine and tango game* prizes.

When the city’s board of commissioners found out, they banned it, threatening repeat offenders with losing their gambling license.

It wasn’t the hosiery the officials took offense to; it was the casinos offering merchandise to encourage the playing of traditional games of chance.

“We are endeavoring to maintain gaming on a high plane and feel bound to discourage and eliminate any practice which may impugn the dignity of our gaming establishments,” they said (Nevada State Journal, Oct. 12, 1946).

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* Tango is similar to bingo and keno

1946

A tastefully attired gent in his 40s sat at a craps table around 7 p.m. on a March Tuesday and began to wager with bundles of $1,000 ($12,000 today).

After betting Harolds Club’s house limit for a while, which yielded $7,500 a point on a win, management waived it. The game lasted 36 hours, during which the mystery man drank coffee but never ate. His playing drew the attention and awe of other guests of this Reno, Nevada casino. Who was this man?

He was a “gambling fool — a gentleman, win, lose or draw — who takes it like a man,” described a Harolds representative (Nevada State Journal, March 16, 1946).

Rumors identified the craps marathoner as R.L. Carnahan from Wichita, Kansas and Kansas City, Missouri, as a person with such a name was registered at Reno’s Riverside Hotel. It’s unknown, though, if that was his real or fake identity.

At one point, Carnahan won $76,000 on a hand and on another, lost $100,000. At 7 a.m. Thursday, after just winning $150,000, Carnahan wanted to stop. He was down $360,000 ($4.4 million today).

He proposed to Harold Smith, a club co-owner known to participate in high-stakes gambling, a final, $500,000 bet. Each would roll a single die; whoever landed a higher number would win. If Carnahan lost, he’d pay $500,000. If he won, he’d remit $220,000, the difference between $360,000 and $140,000, the latter being $500,000 minus what he owed. Smith agreed.

Both men tossed the ivories, each showing a snake eye. Smith took his turn and got a deuce. Carnahan followed and landed a trey, or three spot, winning the wager but owing $220,000 ($2.7 million today). The men shook hands, had a drink together and parted ways.

While Harolds Club executives wouldn’t address the events, give the man’s name or specify if he won or lost and by what amount, they offered this: “The man from Kansas City is a man to be respected” (Nevada State Journal, March 16, 1946).

Sources

1946

Nebraska carnival workers dreamed up a strange variation of roulette, and quickly found themselves in court after police and the humane society objected to it. The game, however, gained at least a few fans.

Dubbed rat or mouse roulette, it consisted of a rotating wheel in the shape of an octagon laid flat with 40 holes evenly distributed around its outer edge. Two live rats would be placed atop the device, and it would be spun. When it stopped, the dizzy rodents would stumble into a hole, each of which indicated a specific payout.

In 1946, a Southern California duo, Logan Champ, 58, and Vivian Gorman, 55, were arrested for running rat roulette. In their case, they paid out hams, coffee and canned goods. They pled guilty to violating a county gambling ordinance and were fined $100 ($1,200 today) apiece.

The same year, in the same region, Harry Wooding, 58, also was busted on gambling charges, but unlike Champ and Gorman’s, his rat roulette game was crooked. He rigged the machine by putting cheese beforehand inside the low-paying holes, which the rats obviously sought out. At his trial, jurors disagreed on the legality of rat roulette, so a second proceeding followed.

At that subsequent probe for truth and justice, with everyone in place and ready to go, the judge ordered the plaintiff to “bring on the evidence.”

“The evidence has died,” the deputy district attorney said, referring to the rodents.

“Case dismissed,” the judge replied.

And it was.

Sources

1946-1947

On the third Tuesday of April 1946, after work at the Southern Pacific Shop in Sparks, Nevada, Sam Lemel took the bus to Reno and went to Harolds Club where he played craps. He began by betting two half-dollars, which he lost. He left the casino and returned a bit later, only to lose four more half-dollars and a dime — ultimately down $3.10 (about $39 today).

From this point on, the version of events the self-described victim and the alleged perpetrator gave diverged.

What Lemel Relayed

Lemel asked for new dice, and Benjamin Shade, the dealer, provided two. When he asked for a selection from which he could choose, Shade wouldn’t accommodate him. Lemel informed the bouncer, Jack Filtzer, that Shade wasn’t following the state law on dice shooting. Filtzer, though, sided with his co-worker.

Lemel asked to speak to the casino’s co-owner Harold Smith about the game’s rules but was denied. So he sought out Smith’s office and knocked on the door, at which time two Reno policemen, Charlie Nichols and George Stone, arrested him and jailed him overnight. Lemel never swore, yelled or threatened to sue the police.

Harolds Club’s Perspective

Casino workers asserted Lemel was asked to stop playing craps because he loudly swore every time he lost. He demanded to see Smith and was told he couldn’t enter the money vault where Smith was. Lemel refused to leave the club and challenged Filtzer to toss him out or call the police. Filtzer did the latter, and when Nichols and Stone arrived, they arrested Lemel for disorderly conduct.

Drunk Tank Experience

Lemel sued Harolds Club and the Reno Police Department, claiming he was arrested falsely and detained “in a vile and loathsome cell with drunken, diseased and unclean people” for 18 hours (Nevada State Journal, Sept. 6, 1947). He stood most of the night, he said, to avoid catching germs. However, body lice and other bugs bit him, he claimed, resulting in a skin problem. At breakfast, because there weren’t enough dishes, in the form of pie plates and tomato cans, for everyone to use, he didn’t get any food. Worse, Lemel wasn’t allowed to communicate with his wife or attorney and wasn’t processed until the next morning. At that time, he pleaded guilty to vagrancy and was given a suspended sentence.

Lemel Seeks Recovery

Based on these allegations, he sought $25,000 (about $333,000 today) in damages.

The trial took place in August. Harolds Club’s counsel, M.A. Diskin, asked that the action be dismissed because Lemel had pleaded guilty upon arraignment, thereby nullifying any scenario in which he’d been arrested without grounds.

Lemel’s attorney, Ernest Brown, countered that his client hadn’t pleaded to disturbing the peace but, rather, vagrancy, which meant he could sue and potentially collect damages.

Attorney George Lohse, representing the two officers, stated that if police officers aren’t permitted to do what Stone and Nichols had done when they’d arrested Lemel, “then it would be useless to try to operate a police force in any city” (Nevada State Journal, Oct. 12, 1946). Lohse added that Lemel had been loud, boisterous, heated and argumentative in Harold’s Club after losing and yelled, “You can’t run your _______ game that way,” an admonition meant for Smith (Nevada State Journal, Oct. 12, 1946).

The Judge Pontificates

Judge A.J. Maestretti ruled that Harolds Club, Smith and Nichols had been justified in acting as they had, and he scolded Lemel for having brought the suit. He told him he should’ve been thankful the parties involved had “rendered him a kindness and the service of protection” (Nevada State Journal, Oct. 17, 1946) as the situation could’ve escalated radically had they not stopped Lemel when they had.

On the issue of whether he could sue for damages after pleading guilty, Maestretti sided with the defendants, reiterating that a guilty plea or conviction should make it impossible to later claim false arrest. Instead of having pleaded guilty, Lemel could’ve requested an attorney, the course an innocent man would’ve taken.

Despite the reprimand, Lemel persisted in pursuing a case. In mid-December, he petitioned for a new trial, but Maestretti refused to afford him one.

In February of the next year, 1947, he appealed to the Nevada Supreme Court.

In September, oral arguments were presented to those jurists, who ultimately sided with the lower court, denying Lemel a new trial.

Sources

1946

Owners of the Casa Vegas gambling club in Southern Nevada, Duke Wiley and Eddie Alias, announced their plan to acquire and convert a surplus, four-engine transport plane into a casino in the air. Slated solely for the then three-hour flight between Las Vegas and Reno, it was to offer on-board roulette, music and entertainment.

“This will enable tourists, harried business men and others to enjoy gambling while traveling and thus save time in the air,” Wiley told the local press.

However, it seems the idea didn’t fully take off and was scrapped.

Photo from freeimages.com, by Steven Kuijs

1940s

1946

Which famous hotel-casino debuted in Las Vegas, Nevada the day after Christmas in this year?

Hint: Jimmy Durante was the grand opening star; while on stage he destroyed a $1,600 piano (a $20,000 value today).

Esta Krakower Siegel

1946

Mobster Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel’s wife, Esta (née Esther Krakower) filed for divorce in Reno, Nevada after 17 years of marriage. The two had wed when she was 18 and he was 23.

In the divorce settlement, Esta got their Hollywood house, their New York apartment, Bugsy’s Cadillac, $600 a week in alimony ($7,500 today) and $350 a week in child support ($4,400 today) for their daughters, Barbara and Millicent, who lived with her full-time.