1940s

1945-1946

Alfred E. Cushman entered the Palace Club, in uniform, shortly after 5 p.m. on Sunday, November 11, 1945. Prior to that, the recently discharged U.S. Army veteran participated in the Armistice Day parade in Northern Nevada. After the procession, he drank eight to 10 beers then shared three or four quarts of whiskey with five other people.

Violence Begets Injuries

An altercation took place inside the casino between Cushman and the bouncer, Frank Richardson. It ended with Richardson tossing Cushman out the back door into Douglas Alley and then allegedly kicking him several times when he tried to get up.

At the behest of Richardson, Reno police officers arrested Cushman and charged him with disturbing the peace. He was taken to Washoe General Hospital, where he received medical care for a scalp wound, fractured thumb, swollen eye, chest tenderness, and bruises and abrasions on his head, face and neck. The hospital bill, which he couldn’t pay, was $1,000 (about $14,000 today).

He was released from policy custody on bail of $50 ($670 today), paid by local veterans many of whom rallied around Cushman then and in the ensuing months. Reno Attorneys Ernest Brown and Ralph Morgali, also former military service members, provided legal services pro bono to Cushman, who’d served four years during World War II in places such as the Philippines and Japan.

Cushman

The Disparate Stories

At the trial, which began on November 17, Richardson, a Missoula, Montana man who’d been employed at the Palace Club for 11 months, testified that Cushman had instigated the trouble and had thrown the first blow.

He said he saw Cushman ask a pit boss for money “nastily” and when denied, harass the women in the cashier’s cage, as reported by the Reno Evening Gazette (Nov. 17, 1945). He told Cushman to leave them alone and “take a walk for your own good,” he recalled. Then Cushman went to grab money from a roulette table, so Richardson took him by the shoulder and instructed him to leave or risk a call to the military police. Cushman then hit Richardson in the face twice. “Then I knocked him down,” Richardson said, “and he grabbed my legs.” Richardson ejected Cushman from the club but didn’t touch him in the alley.

Cushman, who’d pleaded not guilty, told his version of what happened, which was that Richardson had attacked and beaten him ruthlessly for no reason.

Cushman relayed that he went into the Palace Club to ask a faro dealer for money for a meal, as in the past a pit boss had given him $0.50 when he’d asked. The dealer directed him to a boss who then referred him to another. That pit boss told him to wait by the cashier’s cage as he’d be right back. When Richardson instructed Cushman to leave the bosses alone, Cushman responded he just wanted a meal and was waiting for the man to return, he said.

Again, Richardson said to leave; Cushman reiterated he would wait. Richardson grabbed Cushman by the thumb and bent it backwards. Cushman then punched Richardson, and a scuffle ensued. Richardson hit Cushman in the neck, at which point the latter fell unconscious. He came to in the police car en route to the hospital. Cushman denied reaching for money on a game table or bothering anyone.

Police Judge Guy Watts found Cushman guilty of disturbing the peace and fined him $5 (about $70 today). The outcome demonstrated that city police officers were permitted to arrest and jail casino guests at the request of a bouncer.

I Will Not Go Quietly

Cushman took on the Palace Club. On November 23, he sued the club’s owners — Archie Sneed, Elmer West, Ernest “Ernie” J. Primm and Joseph Hall — and Richardson. The veteran sought $15,000 in damages for having been “beat, bruised and battered — in [a] cruel, inhuman, shameful manner,” in an assault that was “unprovoked, unnecessary and without just cause,” read the complaint (Reno Evening Gazette, Nov. 24, 1945). It also noted Cushman hadn’t been able to defend himself in the casino due to his weakened condition brought on from his war service, and from the assault he’d suffered “heart and nervous injuries that diminished his ability to earn a living.

The next year, in mid-March, the trial of Cushman v. Palace Club Inc. took place. It was “one of the most widely-watched civil actions in Reno’s history,” the Reno Evening Gazette reported (March 27, 1946).

Deemed Punishable

After much verbal sparring on both sides, the presiding judge, A.J. Maestretti, ruled. First, he said this about the incident: “In the history of Nevada there are few parallels of the brutality used by Richardson in his treatment of the plaintiff. He did to a human being what an ordinary man would not do to a dog” (Nevada State Journal, March 27, 1946).

He ordered the defendants, Richardson and the club owners, to jointly pay Cushman $10,000 in damages ($128,500 today).

He castigated both Richardson for his actions and the owners for “tolerating conditions which would allow such a situation to exist.”

Not Quite Over

The five Palace Club men threatened to appeal the district court ruling unless Cushman accepted a smaller monetary settlement. Cushman refused.

The debtors filed a motion for a new trial, which if denied, meant an appeal could go straight to the Nevada Supreme Court.

Before the motion could be decided, however, both parties compromised. In court, on May 1, the Palace Club owners and Richardson handed $7,000 ($90,000 today) over to Cushman. That ended six months of litigation.

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Bowling Machine Ad, 1954

1954

Arthur R. Schultz of Ely, Nevada, who’ previously had held a gambling license for slot machines, asked then District Attorney of White Pine County, Jon R. Collins, to rule on whether or not a coin-operated bowling machine (think early version of Skee Ball) constituted a gambling device. Because the machine dispatched tickets that could win high scorers a turkey, Collins determined it in fact was gambling equipment.

Schultz, who apparently disliked the ruling, probably because he owned or wanted to invest in such a machine and didn’t want to pay gambling taxes on it, subsequently accosted Collins one day when he was walking to his office. When Collins refused to accompany Schultz into the alley, the gambler punched him in the nose.

Collins asked the Nevada Tax Commission, which then regulated gaming, to revoke Schultz’s gambling license. The agency members, however, said it was an issue for local authorities, not them. Further, they noted that pulling Schultz’s license was moot in that he wasn’t operating any gaming devices at the time.

Einstoss

1939-1941

Bernard “Bernie” Einstoss was a well-known gambler in Northern Nevada for nearly two decades, between 1947 and 1965.* Prior to that, he masterminded and executed a scheme to fix horse races** in California by bribing and threatening jockeys to “pull” the horses they commandeered, or keep them from winning.

Einstoss went by the name Barney Mooney and introduced himself to people as Mooney.** He earned the nickname “Big Mooney,” wrote John Christgau, “because he liked to sweep into fancy nightclubs and set up the house with drinks — especially champagne, if he was flush from a big winning bet” (The Gambler and The Bug Boy). Einstoss began placing bets in grade school on marbles and chocolates and by high school, which he dropped out of, had progressed to wagering on prize fights, horse racing, baseball and more.

How It Worked

Einstoss, 27, with the help of some accomplices, launched his race fixing scheme with the season’s start in 1939 in Southern California, where he ran a suite of bookmaking rooms in Los Angeles with fellow gamblers, Benjamin Chapman and I.W. “Doc Kebo” Kivel.

The three spread tips around Hollywood movie lots that specific horses were sure to win in certain races, and they’d take the bets on them. Specific targets were high rollers like George Raft and Don Ameche. Then Einstoss would have the jockeys riding those horses deliberately lose the races. The trio profited from the betters’ (or suckers’) losses, assuredly and amply.

Manipulation Of Jockeys

Einstoss had intermediaries recruit and pay jockeys who could be bribed, typically those who were young, under age 20 for instance, vulnerable and desperate for money. Based on handicapping percentages, Einstoss determined which horses he wanted to lose and got word to the corresponding jockeys to “pull” them, sometimes multiple horses for one jockey in a day. Einstoss paid the riders $200 (about $3,500 today) per favorite and $100 ($1,700 today) per longshot horse they pulled and paid the go-betweens $200 per jockey they turned.

Einstoss had thrashed a jockey who hadn’t done what he’d asked, and most expressed a fear of him and belief that he’d kill them if provoked. In at least one instance, when a jockey failed to lose a race because he couldn’t physically restrain the horse, Einstoss told him, “You cost me $30,000! Thirty-thousand dollars! I’ve thrown boys in the ocean for less” (The Gambler and The Bug Boy). (This is equivalent to about $532,000 today.)

“These boys, I feel sorry for personally because I believe that they are just young kids, that is all, and they are not mature. They have not the state of mind to think things out … and they are tempted with easy money … far more than they ever saw before in their lives,” Jerry Giesler, chairman of the California Horse Racing Board, said at a hearing where numerous jockeys were compelled to tell what they knew about the race fixing.

Perpetrators Caught, Plot Halted

In November 1940, following an investigation, Einstoss was arrested and, eventually, so were his partners in crime. They were his brother, gopher and bet taker, Jack Einstoss; gamblers Chapman and Kivel; and two middlemen, Saul “Sonny” Greenberg, a horse trainer, and James Joseph Murphy, real name Irving Sangbusch, a race track follower.

Because fixing races wasn’t illegal (yet) in California, the group was charged with conspiracy and contributing to the delinquency of minors (the jockeys).

The Prosecution’s Case

At the trial, which began on February 28, 1941, the State of California argued that the defendants ran bookmaking establishments and through control of jockeys, altered the outcomes of races on which they’d accepted wagers and themselves had bet at the tracks. Prosecutors alleged that the group had fixed more than 100 races at various tracks — Hollywood Park, Del Mar, Bay Meadows and Tanforan — yielding an estimated $1 million (about $17.7 million today).

Sangbusch/Murphy testified for the state in exchange for removal of the charges against him. He explained that Reno, Nevada mobster and illegal gambler William “Bill/Curly” Graham had suggested to him that he contact Einstoss and had furnished the phone number. Sangbusch followed through, and the next day met with Einstoss, Kivel, Chapman and others at the bookies’ Hollywood headquarters, where they discussed the race fixing strategy. Subsequently, Sangbusch began working as an intermediary for the group. He admitted to having distributed about $20,000 ($355,000 today) in bribes from Einstoss to certain jockeys.

Defense: Gambler With Scruples

When Einstoss, free on $3,000 bail, took the stand, he claimed he made money by gambling on odds as opposed to race fixing through bribing jockeys. His attorney, Paul McCormick, argued that Einstoss was “always an honest gambler” (Los Angeles Times, May 3, 1941) yet admitted that Einstoss had given money to the jockeys and had known the jockeys, of their own accord, likely were going to pull their horses.

“But the facts are that the jockeys approached Einstoss,” not the other way around, McCormick added. “They were touting him to bet on certain horses and he paid them money for their tips. It is very probable that they might have pulled those horses to make their tips good and therefore collect more money.”

During final arguments, Einstoss “burst into tears,” got up, left the courtroom, went into an adjoining room, sat and sobbed (Nevada State Journal, May 16, 1941).

The End Result

After two months of testimony, at May’s end, the jury found Einstoss guilty on four misdemeanor counts of contributing to the delinquency of minors but not on the conspiracy charge. The judge ordered he serve a year in county jail and pay a $1,000 ($17,000 today) fine. The convicted man did both.

Subsequently, Einstoss moved to Reno, Nevada. Over the ensuing decades, he co-owned and had some involvement in the casino operations at the Mapes and Riverside hotels and the Horseshoe Club in Reno, along with the Bal Tabarin at Lake Tahoe in Crystal Bay. He had a smaller, nonoperational ownership in Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.

Most of the jockeys who participated in the plot were suspended indefinitely from horse racing in California.

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* Bernard Einstoss died in 1966 at age 53 in Southern California.
** Horse racing under the parimutuel wagering system has been legal in The Golden State since 1933.
*** The name “Mooney” comes from the Gaelic word “maoin,” which translates into “wealthy” or “descendant of the wealthy one.”

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