1938

Esquire* Harry T. Clifton was a wealthy Englishman who owned racing stables and often visited Southern California.

During his visit there in April 1938, he gambled with Lew Brice and Tommy Guinan in a Long Beach hotel.

Brice was the brother of comedienne Fanny Brice, and a former stage dancer and comedian in his own right. Guinan was the brother of Mary Louis “Texas” Guinan, an exuberant actress and speakeasy owner during Prohibition.

The three and two other men began with a friendly game of bridge. They moved to poker, in which Clifton was “slightly conversant.” During one 12-minute game, the Brit lost $150,000 (about $2.6 million today)!  He bet it all on two pair — kings and jacks. Brice won the pot with a winning hand of three of a kind — sevens.

To pay his debt, Clifton wrote two checks — one for $100,000 on a London bank account and the other for $50,000 on a New York one — which he gave Brice.

You Did What?

When the esquire relayed the story to his confidante, Violet Greener, the pastor of the Mystic Agabec temple in Hollywood, she suggested he’d been duped. She advised him to stop payment on the checks.

Clifton’s attorney filed an injunction in court to do just that because:

• Brice had won the $150,000 by trickery

• Brice had misrepresented his ability to pay such an amount had he lost the game

• Clifton lacked the funds to cover the amount

The judge granted a temporary restraining order against Brice, which halted the checks from being processed.

Stud V. Draw Query

Meanwhile, investigators for the district attorney’s office looked into the case, trying to determine whether the poker game was of the stud or draw** type. This mattered because the former was illegal but the latter was allowed in California.

Clifton, Brice and Guinan recounted different stories. Whereas Clifton noted the game was stud, the other two said it was draw. As for the amount in the big pot, the debtor maintained it was $150,000, Guinan said it was $100,000 of Clifton’s money and Brice contended it was $40,000.

Later, it came to light that Brice owed a Danish actress/pianist $100,000 from a legal judgment four years earlier, perhaps his motive for allegedly swindling Clifton.

D.A. investigators sought two ladies who had celebrated with Brice and Guinan after the game to see if they could say what type of poker it had been. They also wanted to talk to the man who dealt the game, a George Lewis, but he apparently had gone to Texas supposedly to “look after some oil interests” (Nevada State Journal, May 5, 1938). It’s unknown whether the investigators found and spoke to those individuals.

Unexpectedly, Brice suddenly agreed to waive all rights to the $150,000, perhaps fearing he could be prosecuted because they had in fact played stud, the illegal version. He said he’d leave it to Clifton to act honorably regarding payment.

To Hearth And Home

A few days after the big losing game, Clifton’s wife Lillian, former Boston society lady, phoned the Los Angeles police from England and asked them to do whatever they could to help the man save his money until she got to California.

“Keep your eye on my husband and that ghost woman,” she said, referring to Greener. “Put him in jail, if you have to” (The Morning Avalanche, May 10, 1938).

The police captain nicely told her they had no reason to detain her beloved.

In May, Clifton and his attorney requested the D.A. drop the matter, which he did.

Deciding it best to return to England, the esquire, unshaven and appearing disheveled, went to the airport. Greener accompanied him to see him off. Her daughter met them there and told Clifton she’d received two phone calls from a man who said, “We’ll get you and everyone concerned in this matter” (Nevada State Journal, May 12, 1938).

Clifton told reporters he planned to rest for a while in New York before sailing back home. He kissed Greener and boarded the plane.

In a postscript, late that year, law enforcement officers in San Francisco arrested and jailed Brice on a vagrancy charge. The judge, however dismissed it with the warning that Fanny’s sibling not get into card games in that city.

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* Historically, in the United Kingdom, esquire was a title of respect bestowed on men of higher social standing, above the rank of gentleman and below that of knight.

** In draw poker, all of the cards are dealt face down whereas in stud, some are dealt face up.

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Embassy Club interior

1936-Present

If it weren’t for gambler Ernest J. Primm’s nerve and fortitude, California’s nearly 90 card clubs wouldn’t exist today.

With a gambling license from the City of Gardena (in Los Angeles County), he opened a poker room there in 1936 — the Embassy Club. It was the first aboveground establishment of its kind since The Golden State’s anti-gambling legislation had been enacted in 1860.

Players, who competed against each other, not the house, each rented a seat for $1 ($17 today) and chips — which is how the business made money.

Primm viewed the enterprise as legal given the existing state and local gambling laws. California’s Anti-Gambling Act banned all banking* and percentage** games involving cards, dice or any other devices, along with 11 specific games. Non-banking poker wasn’t excluded.

Unlike Primm, law enforcement officials viewed even non-banking poker as illegal. Captain George “Ironman” Contreras, head of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s vice squad, for instance, believed the commercialization of the game was wrong despite no regulations against it.

“I don’t object to draw poker in private homes, but I feel it is improper in clubs where the proprietors charge a fee for the tables,” he said (Los Angeles Times, Nov. 7, 1938).

Round One: Is Poker Legal?

A year after the Embassy Club debuted, four men — three players and one employee — were arrested, charged with illegal gambling and taken to trial. It resulted in California Attorney General Ulysses Webb, in 1938, reaffirming the Supreme Court decision from 41 years earlier that gambling doesn’t violate the state’s laws unless there’s a house percentage or banker for the games.

The judge acquitted all of the defendants due to insufficient evidence based on Webb’s ruling. Primm kept operating his establishment, and other similar clubs sprang up in the county.

Round Two: Another Test Case

Yet, despite his own ruling, Webb pursued closure of these poker palaces with the help of Southern California law enforcement groups.

“My opinion, right or wrong, doesn’t justify gambling,” Webb responded, reported the Los Angeles Times (Nov. 5, 1938.)

In November 1938, Webb ordered the shuttering of card rooms in Gardena, Hawthorne, Redondo Beach, Ocean Park and Long Beach — all in Los Angeles County. Many closed willingly. Sheriff’s squads stormed those that didn’t (Primm’s Embassy and two Hawthorne clubs), seized their equipment and padlocked the doors.

“Capt. Contreras said yesterday’s raids should result in a test case to determine if draw poker is legal in California. He said owners will have to seek Superior Court writs to regain their paraphernalia,” reported the Los Angeles Times (Nov. 7, 1938).

Another trial ensued, which involved Primm and other operators, who were victorious. The judge acquitted them and mandated their gambling equipment be returned.

Round Three: A Different Tack

Webb and his supporters, though, persisted in their anti-poker efforts. They next sought legal closure of the clubs for being public nuisances, targeting the Embassy Club for the precedent. Primm and his co-owners again were prohibited from conducting gambling on the property until the court ruling. At that hearing, the judge ruled on Webb’s side, determining the clubs met the definition of public nuisances and, thus, were subject to abatement proceedings.

“A house which is open to the public as a gaming house at which large numbers of persons congregate for the purpose of betting on a game is a public nuisance even though the game itself might be innocent and harmless,” he said (Los Angeles Times, Feb. 3, 1939).

He issued permanent injunctions against all of the poker parlors in Gardena and Hawthorne, forcing them to halt all activity. This remained in effect for two years.

Total Knockout: Poker Allowed

In the interim, Primm and his co-owners of Gardena’s Monterey Club filed an appeal, which the State District  Court of Appeals heard in 1941. The jurists determined that non-banking poker was legal!

“Neither playing draw poker or maintaining a place where it is played being an offense, it follows that the city of Gardena was authorized to license and regulate the operations of such pastime within its corporate limits,” Associate Justice Thomas P. White wrote in the opinion (Los Angeles Times, Nov. 29, 1941).

“Gambling is neither unlawful per se or a public nuisance per se in California. Playing at any game, even for money, is not in itself an offense at common law. The offense, if any, must be created by statute, and can only be punished as the statute directs,” White explained.

Finally allowed to operate hassle free, card clubs in Los Angeles County thrived for decades, particularly those in Gardena, which evolved into California’s mecca for such gambling between the 1940s and 1970s. At one point, more revenue from these clubs went to that city than any other in California, and its poker version called Gardena jackpots is named after the locale, where it was hugely popular during the same period.

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*Banking games = those in which bets are placed against a house, bank or dealer
**Percentage games = banking games with relatively disproportionate odds

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1861-present

Since becoming a U.S. territory, Nevada has undergone periods of full, partial and no legalization of gambling. Here’s a timeline of what types of games of chance legislators allowed or disallowed and when:

1861: GAMBLING ABOLISHED: The initial Nevada Territorial Legislature banned the dealing, running, opening, conducting or playing of any game of faro, monte, roulette, lansquenet or rouge et noir or any banking game (where the player bets against the house) played with cards, dice or any other device for anything of value.

1865: Anti-gaming law reiterated: In the first legislative session after Nevada joined the Union in 1864, lawmakers replaced the territorial law with a state statute outlining a similar ban.

1869: Gaming partially legalized: Nevada legalized only the games outlawed in 1861 and mandated operators be licensed.

1873: Lotteries prohibited: Lawmakers banned lotteries, which were defined as any scheme for the disposal or distribution of property, by chance, among paying players.

1875: Additional games legalized: The legislature approved keno, fantan, 21, Diana, and red white and blue.

1885: Legal/illegal games changed: An amendment allowed stud-horse poker, or percentage, with a license. It outlawed roulette.

1901: Slots deemed illegal: The state prohibited the playing or offering of nickel-in-the-slot machines or similar devices.

1903: Bookmaking allowed with license: A new act made it legal, with appropriate licensure, to engage in, conduct or carry on any bookmaking on horse races, prize fights or any games conducted outside of the state.

1905: Slots deemed legal: The state repealed the anti-slots law, thereby legalizing them with required licensure.

1910: GAMBLING ABOLISHED: The anti-gambling act went into effect at midnight Sept. 30, 1910. It disallowed all gambling mentioned in prior acts and amendments along with tan, fantan, seven and a half, hokey pokey, craps, klondike, whist, bridge whist, five hundred, solo and frog.  It also forbade any gambling games in which the operator, for making the game available, received compensation or reward or a share of the money or property wagered. It banned offering or playing slot machines along with all kinds of bookmaking.

1915: Some gambling excepted: The legislature legalized poker; stud-horse poker; five hundred; solo; whist; parimutuel betting on horse races; slot machines for the sales of cigars and drinks; and social games only played for drinks and cigars served individually or prizes up to $2 in value.

“Gambling on casino or old maid is a serious crime, a felony,” noted the Nevada State Journal (Sept. 28, 1930). “But on poker or solo or whist it is all right. Betting on a dog race is felonious, but the same bet on a horse race is clothed with the sanctity of the law.”

1931: WIDE-OPEN GAMBLING LEGALIZED: Lawmakers passed a liberal gaming law that remains in effect today, which legalized all forms of gambling except lotteries and which required licensing of operators. Along with slot machines, the law listed the approved games: faro, monte, roulette, keno, fantan, twenty-one (blackjack), seven and a half, big injun, klondike, craps, stud poker and draw poker. The law permitted slot machines; any banking or percentage game played with cards, dice or any mechanical device or machine; and any game in which the operator receives compensation or reward. It also removed the rules surrounding social games.

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