Cactus Pete’s casino in Jackpot, Nevada in 1960

1960

When one rural Nevada town grew into a gambling hot spot in the mid-1900s, the gamblers in another loudly grumbled.

Soon after Idaho outlawed slot machines, its last vestige of legal gambling, the sagebrush- and broomgrass-covered land 47 miles south of Twin Falls, just across the border, began to evolve into a small community — Jackpot. It grew to consist of about 125 trailers (no houses), two motels, a grocery store and a beauty shop.

Development started in 1954 with the debut of the Horshu Club. The 93, Cactus Pete’s, Tex’s Gateway and Diamond Jim’s then followed. Together, these casinos offered 320 slot machines, four pits of 21, roulette and dice tables, keno and wheels of fortune along with free meals and stage entertainment.

By 1960, the town’s five gambling houses drew thousands of players per year,* many from nearby Idaho Falls. To capitalize on that city’s pool of players, Jackpot’s gamblers provided free nightly, round-trip transportation by bus.

Gamblers Protest About, Well, Other Gamblers

Rival casino owners in Elko, which officially became a city in 1917, claimed the Jackpot clubs were exploiting Twin Falls’ economy. They predicted law enforcement and public service problems would arise in Jackpot and warned the end result would be Twin Falls business owners lobbying for a federal gambling ban.

“Frankly, the Elko gamblers don’t like the competition — they are 115 miles farther from the Idaho line,” wrote the Oakland Tribune (Nov. 13, 1960).

The state’s gaming regulators noted the complaints and thought they might be valid in part. They wondered if casinos in the rural border regions might harm the industry overall, particularly because those places were difficult for them to oversee and because of the payoff scandal involving a gambling watchdog in the rural town of Wells that had occurred earlier in the decade.

The Nevada Gaming Control Board launched an investigation, and in November 1960, conducted a survey of Twin Falls residents about their attitude toward gambling in Jackpot. It revealed that 18 percent favored it, 30 percent opposed it and 53 percent were neutral.

Were Nevada’s gaming agencies to forbid gambling in Jackpot, it would set a dangerous precedent, said the attorney for the community, Leo Puccinelli.

“Nevada gambling was built by competition and it will be in trouble if the established clubs can win monopolies with legislation,” he added. “After all, the major part of Nevada gambling is on a border basis. Only Elko is in central Nevada, while Reno and Lake Tahoe cater to Northern California and Las Vegas to Southern California” (Oakland Tribune, Sept. 16, 1960).

Jackpot’s gamblers remained mum on the issue, hoping it would go away … which eventually it did, leaving them to continue running their casinos without impediment by the state.

*Total gaming revenue from Elko County, including Elko and Jackpot, then was between $4 and $5 million ($32.5 and $40.7 million today) per year.

Sources

1960

Bookies throughout Nevada had been taking wagers right and left on who’d win the upcoming U.S. presidential election — Senator John F. Kennedy (Dem.) or Vice President Richard Nixon (Rep.).

Suddenly, in November, they were forced to stop doing so when a news story was published about the forgotten Silver State law of 1919 that banned any type of election betting.

Wonder what happened to the money they’d already collected!

1960

A cheap, spiral notebook held great power in Nevada’s gambling world for decades.

It contained known U.S. mobsters whose underworld statuses and histories were such that the state gambling authorities didn’t want them anywhere near The Silver State’s casinos. This was a problem as these undesirables frequented major gambling operations in the state.

Nevada had legalized gambling in 1931, but it wasn’t until about two decades later that casinos became under stricter regulatory control, after the creation of two such agencies — first the Nevada Gaming Control Board (NGCB) in 1955 and then the Nevada Gaming Commission (NGC) in 1959.

Soon after, in 1960, the NGCB created and distributed the book to major casinos along with the state regulation mandating all casinos be operated in a way “suitable to protect the public health, safety, morals, good order and general welfare of the State of Nevada.” Casinos weren’t to allow the hoodlums in the book into their establishments … under any circumstances … ever.

Failure to comply meant losing their gambling licenses and, thus, ability to run such enterprises. The compilation garnered the name “Black Book,” not because of its sinister connotations but due to its plain black cover. And despite being labeled “Top Secret,” everyone seemed to know about it.

Each mobster in the black book garnered one page, which contained their picture, aliases and FBI file number. Over time, the NGCB deleted names from and added names to the list. The public never knew how and why the gambling regulators chose the undesirables they did for inclusion.

Blacklisted Mobsters

These were the 11 original bad boys in the black book and their primary cities of operation:

Chicago

• Salvatore Giancana (aka Salvatore Giancana, Sam Giancana, Momo, Mooney, Sam the Cigar, Sammy): a boss from 1957 to 1966
• Llewelyn Morris Humphreys (aka Murray Llewelyn Humphreys, Murray Humphreys, The Camel, The Hump): an alleged lieutenant of Al Capone and Sam Giancana
• Marcello Giuseppe Caifano (aka Johnny Marshall, Marshall Caifano): an overseer of mob-controlled casinos in Las Vegas who was suspected of numerous murders

Kansas City

• Nicholas Civella (aka Nick Civella): a mob boss (brother of Carl Civella)
• Carl James Civella (aka Cork): in charge of day-to-day operations (brother of Nicholas Civella)
• Motel Grzebienacz (aka Max Jaben): an associate and alleged lieutenant for Sam Giancana

Los Angeles

• Louis Tom Dragna (aka Lou Allen): a boss, who challenged the black book’s constitutionality
• John Louis Battaglia (aka The Bat): an associate
• Joseph Sica (aka J.S., Joe Sica): a racketeer involved in bookmaking, armed robbery, murder for hire, extortion and narcotics distribution
• Robert L. Garcia (aka Bobby Garcia): an associate

New York

• Michael Coppola (aka Trigger Mike): a capo for the Genovese crime family

Today, a digital version of the black book (the Excluded Persons list) exists on Nevada’s gambling agencies’ website. Along with underworld-affiliated individuals, it contains known, big-time gambling cheaters.

Sources