Lucky, the horse, and its owner, Susan Wallace, play roulette at the Club Cal-Neva in Reno, Nevada

1950

Susan Wallace, a 24-year-old, “plucky blonde” who resided in Hollywood, California, needed money to further her opera studies (Nevada State Journal, Jan. 8, 1950). 

In early January, she sent telegrams to the casinos in Reno, Nevada — Harolds Club, Harrah’s Club, Bank Club, Club Cal-Neva, Palace Club, Riverside hotel — asking if they’d be amenable to horse roulette and if their casino could accommodate a horse and its size.

Unlike rat roulette, where the rodents are part of the gambling equipment, equine roulette involves a horse actually playing the game . . . well, with a bit of help.

Wallace would be in The Biggest Little City in a few days, she informed them, and wanted her white stallion — which she’d named Lucky because of his past gambling success — to play roulette with her there.

“‘Lucky,’ the horse, has never been known to draw to a soft 17 or crapped out in a friendly game in the stables among his buddies or in any flourishing casino,” reported the Nevada State Journal (Jan. 5, 1950).

Varied Responses

Three clubs replied via Western Union. A Harolds Club official asked how old Lucky was, noting the legal age for gambling was 21. Well, whew!  Lucky was eight in horse years, which was said to be equivalent to about age 32 in a human, so he was legal.

Ed Dowd of the Riverside Hotel told Wallace he wanted to host her and Lucky when the property expansion, in progress at the time, was done.

The Club Cal-Neva was the only casino to extend an invitation. It was through the manager Morrie Brodsky with this dispatch: “‘Under due consideration, Club Cal- Neva extends to you and your horse ‘Lucky’ all our gambling courtesies and privileges heretofore known only to man. Please be advised gaming limits and house policy must be adhered to. May the best animal win. Please advise your date of arrival. Regards’” (Nevada State Journal, Jan. 8, 1950).

Raising Awareness

Four days later, upon her arrival with Lucky, Wallace informed the press that a group of Los Angeles men, who believed in Lucky’s gambling acumen and Wallace’s singing ability, had given her $10,000 (nearly $1 million today) for the trip and gambling. A percentage of her and Lucky’s winnings would be hers to use for operatic training. She said she planned to stay in Reno as long as her money lasted or until she won a certain, undisclosed amount.

Whinnying At Roulette

On the 8th, the Homo Sapien-Equus duo hoofed it over to the Club Cal-Neva where they engaged in Lucky’s favorite game of chance. To play, Wallace would extend a silver dollar, which Lucky would grasp between his teeth. He’d move his head back and forth along the numbers and drop the coin on one of them. For each wheel turn, he’d select three numbers, and Wallace would bet on the same ones.

“Tourists raised their eyebrows and were quite surprised but most Reno residents dismissed the entire affair as one of those things they had to contend with,” noted the Nevada State Journal (Jan. 10, 1950).

On the second day, Wallace admitted gambling with Lucky was a publicity stunt to further her singing career, either with her winnings or from a well-paying singing job that might result from the press coverage.

After three days of play, the two were up by $600. The subsequent day they lost, but Wallace wouldn’t say by how much.

Media Go Silent

How the woman and horse fared subsequently or how long they were in Reno weren’t reported. Could this mean they stopped playing that day and left town soon after? Or did they perhaps lose the whole $10 grand before returning home?

Sources

1950

In late 1948, Hollywood movie producer, Frank N. Seltzer — known for the movies, Jungle Patrol and Let’s Live Again, which debuted that same year — began research for his next project, 711 Ocean Drive, starring Edmond O’Brien and Joanne Dru.

He intended for it to expose the “bookie racket,” or “wire service as a new industry for the hoodlums who lost out through repeal” of Prohibition,” he said (Nevada State Journal, June 15, 1950).

He planned to film in a handful of California and Nevada cities. However, Lieutenant William “Bill” Burns, with the Los Angeles Police Department, warned Seltzer he was “walking into a bear trap” in Las Vegas.

In 1949, after the script was ready, someone from the public relations firm that represented the City of Las Vegas told Seltzer they could make available famous hotel-casinos on the Strip for filming. A separate hotel owner directly offered his property for the Sin City sequences. Further, a city councilman and Chamber of Commerce member assured the producer they’d cooperate fully with production.

Obstruction, Harassment Begin

Two months later, however, when production manager, Orville Fouse, went to Las Vegas, the hotel-casino owner who had offered his property for filming asked him to his office, where there were three “bruisers leaning against the wall,” Seltzer described. The hotelier told Fouse the trio believed making the movie would be “harmful to the best interests of the city.” The PR company also reneged. Seltzer’s cameramen were denied a rental car and city airport facility services and told to return to Los Angeles where they belonged.

A false rumor that Seltzer was working on a biopic of the late mobster, Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, spread around Sin City. The bogus story that Seltzer was filming for a story about mobster Mickey Cohen was perpetrated in Palm Springs.

“We are going to stop you in any way we can,” Las Vegas gamblers made clear to Seltzer.

“Frank didn’t realize what danger was in this flicker until some mobsters from Las Vegas threatened

to run him out of town — loaded with lead — when we went there on location,” O’Brien said (Lubbock Morning Avalanche, Aug. 17, 1950).

At that point, LAPD’s Burns assigned himself and four of his Gangster Squad men to escort Seltzer and the cast throughout filming.

Despite the warnings and obstructionism, Seltzer moved forward with his cinematic project as best he could. He and his production team were prevented from filming in Vegas, at Lake Mead and a well-known Los Angeles restaurant. He was nearly stopped from shooting in Palm Springs.

When attempts were made to block them from shooting scenes near Boulder Dam, Seltzer had his attorneys ask the Secretary of the Interior, Oscar L. Chapman, to intervene, which he did. Consequently, U.S. forest rangers were assigned to the crew, and filming took place but allegedly remained fraught with danger.

For instance, O’Brien, the movie’s leading man, recalled what really happened during the final sequence when his character, Eddie, was supposed to be shot with blanks by 20 riflemen during a chase through Boulder Dam, “After the take, I turned around and there were three bullet holes in a car windshield — about a foot from my head” (Lubbock Morning Avalanche, Aug. 17, 1950). “The cops cleared out all spectators including a few hoods in their midst. We had to do that scene over three more times — and, believe me, I ‘died’ each time.”

The International News Service reported, “As police know, 711 was in constant danger from hoodlums and was protected by a battery of police and plainclothesmen … 711 almost cost the lives of a few persons connected with it, including O’Brien’s.”

Seltzer presumed the gamblers’ main objection to his picture was that it revealed how past posting — faking odds and placing bets after races occurred — could beat the bookies.

Reactions Upon Movie Debut

Upon 711 Ocean Drive’s 1950 release, some critics claimed it fell short of being a hard-hitting, revelatory movie about the gambling industry. Instead, they said, it was a modest melodrama at best, “no more than an average crime picture with some colorful but vague details thrown in,” reported the Los Angeles Times (July 20, 1950).

Others lauded it for being the first to portray “the inside story of the infamous syndicate and its hoodlum empire, with its terror and violence,” and “forcefully reveal[ing] the many facets of the bookmaking business which takes millions of dollars daily from thousands of small bettors: housewives, mechanics, office workers, students,” according to Utah’s Salt Lake Tribune (July 31, 1950).

Sources

Gambling at the slots in the Sands, Las Vegas, 1950s

1950

Las Vegas spent $750,000 a year on advertising (about $7.5 million today). The Chamber of Commerce promoted the town as: “An oasis for the harassed refugees from artificial restraints and laws of other states.”

Photo from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, University Libraries’ Digital Collections

1950

The $1.6 million Desert Inn resort had just opened in Las Vegas, and a gambling naif nearly put it out of business. A 22-year-old sailor, who didn’t know much about gambling, bet $1 on craps and had a run of 27 straight passes. During it, the people around him started winning, too.

“There was pandemonium. People were screaming and yelling. Those in the back were offering up to $500 (about $5,000 today) for a place to stand at the table so that they could get their money down,” Wilbur Clark, front man for the Cleveland’s Mayfield Road Gang and mobster Moe Dalitz, told the press 12 years later.

The hot streak cost the casino $260,000 of its $300,000 ($2.6 of $3 million today) bank.

1950

For Hollywood’s Academy Awards, Las Vegas, Nevada casinos offered even money on All The King’s Men, the favorite for Best Movie. The other nominees and their odds were Battleground, 5 to 2; The Heiress, 9 to 2; and Twelve O’Clock High, 10 to 1.

In fact, Sin City had it right; the Oscar for Best Movie went to All The King’s Men, a story loosely based on the career of Huey Long, former Louisiana governor who, for one, allowed mobsters to run illegal gambling freely in the state in exchange for payoffs. (A remake of the film came out in 2006.)