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

1947-1953

Harolds Club bustled on Christmas Eve in 1947 with revelers enjoying the gambling and camaraderie when an unexpected event instantly silenced the din. Panic followed.

Since the previous morning, Reno, Nevada police had been trying to locate a suspect: white male, approximately 20 years old, 5 feet 8 inches, 150 pounds. He’d robbed two taxicabs at gunpoint — one for $17 and one for $5 (about $184 and $54 today, respectively) — and had failed a third attempt.

At around 12:30 a.m., detective sergeants Francis Quinn and James Franklin spotted the alleged criminal entering Harolds Club. They followed him inside, where they informed patrolman William Reeder, working his regular beat there, of the situation. The three quickly fanned out then closed in on their target.

“Take your hands out of your pockets,” Quinn ordered.

The young man shot at the officers. All three fell, wounded. They didn’t fire back for fear a bystander might get hurt. Meanwhile, casino guests darted under tables or ran. Amazingly, none was hit.

Pursuit Of Fugitive

The suspect fled out the door. He got into a taxicab and after riding for a few minutes, pulled a gun on the driver (who hadn’t heard about the shooting), robbed him of $20 ($216 today) and got out.

About an hour later, 15 policemen, sheriff’s deputies and FBI agents traced the gunman to a used car lot where they cornered him. Again, he tried to shoot his way free, but that time a gun battle ensued. A bullet entered his shoulder and another grazed his head behind his ear. At that point, he gave up willingly.

He was arrested and processed then taken to the local hospital for medical treatment.

The culprit, Bobby Carter, originally was from Kentucky. He’d deserted the Navy a few months earlier, having abandoned his post in an Eastern state. He’d gone to Reno from San Francisco.

Of the hurt police officers, Franklin suffered the severest injuries as a bullet entered his abdomen, ruptured his spleen, passed his internal organs then lodged in his back. Reeder sustained a gunshot wound to his hand and an abrasion on his torso. Quinn was hit in the right thigh. Physicians said they expected them all to recover fully.

Punishment Delivered

In January of 1948, Carter was found guilty of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill and was sentenced to a prison term of 1 to 14 years. (Strangely, at the time, the penalty for shooting someone was more lenient than that for grand larceny; 1 to 14 years was the maximum punishment for assault with the intent to kill whereas 2 to 14 years was the minimum for grand larceny!)

After serving about 5½ years, Carter was paroled, in May 1953.

Sources

During Nevada’s 1957 legislature, State Senator Kenneth Johnson (R-Ormsby), voiced his concerns about some of the state’s gambling licensees* simultaneously co-owning Cuban casinos.

He feared that:

• Nevada licensees might form alliances with U.S. mobsters in Havana, who primarily ran gambling there

• Nevada licensees might use those relationships to hide mob interests in their Silver State gambling enterprises

• U.S. lawmakers might grow intolerable of the political ties between Nevada licensees/their agents and the Cuban government

• U.S. lawmakers might, therefore, pass a law that eradicates legal gambling in Nevada

“I don’t like to see them use the stamp of respectability given them by Nevada as a magic wand to go into similar business ventures in other part of the world,” Johnson said (Reno Evening Gazette, Jan. 26, 1957). “From now on I’m going to dedicate my efforts to protecting Nevada’s gambling monopoly.”

Johnson, therefore, was tasked with studying the effects on the state of its licensees being involved in Cuban gambling.

Potential Stain On Nevada

Before he could report his findings as planned, prior to the next (1959) legislative session, events took place that forced Nevada’s gaming regulators to take a stand immediately.

In December 1957, Albert Anastasia was murdered. He’d been a boss of the Giambino crime family and head of Murder, Inc., the Mafia’s enforcement branch that was founded by notorious, New York mobster Meyer Lansky, who also was an associate of Charles “Lucky” Luciano.

New York police were investigating the angle that mobsters involved in Cuba’s gambling industry, Lansky in particular, had Anastasia whacked because he’d tried to horn in on that territory.

Cuba Gambing Exposé

In March 1958, LIFE magazine published an article, “Mobsters Move in on Troubled Havana and Split Rich Gambling Profits with Batista.” The subtitle was, “Old Familiar Faces from Las Vegas Show Up in Plush New Casinos with Plenty of Fast ‘Action’ to take Tourist Dollars.”

Of the surreptitiously taken photos in the piece, one depicted Meyer Lansky and a woman leaving the Riviera casino. The description noted that he carried a “satchel reported to have contained $200,000 from cashier’s office” and went on to state, “Lansky was returning to U.S., where he was picked up for questioning in the Anastasia murder case.”

Meyer Lansky, known as the mob’s accountant, had gambling interests from coast to coast in the United States and had been a key player in the Mafia’s development of Las Vegas. Another image showed Meyer’s brother, Jake Lansky, in Cuba’s Nacional casino.

Spotlight On Silver State

The LIFE article stated Nevada’s casino industry was spotless: “Ever since the Nevada boom hit full stride in the ’40s, the gambling mob has been ‘legit,’ shunning the back streets and peepholes, running scrupulously honest tables, keeping books and paying income taxes.” (This was partially valid.)

The piece, though, also revealed that some Silver State licensees were entangled with major mobsters in Cuba, where the industry wasn’t so clean. (This was true.)

The Lanskys managed Cuba’s Nacional casino while owner Wilbur Clark, co-owner of the Desert Inn in Las Vegas, was the front man and three other Desert Inn shareholders were investors. Meyer also owned a piece of the action at the Havana Riviera casino with three Nevadans tied to the Sands and the Fremont hotel-casinos in Sin City.  

The other Nevada gaming licensee involved in Cuban gambling was Clifford Jones, the co-owner of the Thunderbird Hotel in Las Vegas, who owned a percent interest in the Havana Hilton casino.

“Nevada, which has already been and is under fire, cannot stand idly by when licensees participate in activities which in any way bring notoriety or discredit to the state,” the Nevada Gaming Control Board (NGCB) wrote in a report (Reno Evening Gazette, April 25, 1958).

The rumor in Cuba then was that the all-powerful in Las Vegas orchestrated the LIFE exposé and were supporting Fidel Castro to collapse Havana gambling. Many Nevada gamblers didn’t like the industry’s booming success in the island nation where the swanky hotels and casinos were larger than any in Las Vegas.

In Or Out?

The LIFE article spurred the Silver State’s gambling regulators to act. In April, they demanded that the eight licensees with financial interests in Cuban casinos choose Nevada or Cuba, as they no longer could operate in both places.

All of the gamblers selected Nevada and claimed they’d divest their Cuban holdings but noted it might take some time.

A new Nevada regulation followed that bars all state gambling licensees from engaging in casino operations in any other state or nation.

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* Gambling licensees and/or casino owners or operators are referred to as gamblers

Sources

Photo from the University of Miami Libraries’ Digital Collections

1935

Stanford University’s (California) Indians and Southern Methodist University’s (Texas) Mustangs were to vie in the Rose Bowl football game on New Year’s Day, and this meant trains of people traveling from The Lone Star State to Pasadena.

Texas officials warn any gamblers with ideas of operating games of chance on those trains that special agents will be on board to curtail such activities. (The game odds favored the Mustangs, yet the Indians won, 7 to 0.)

Photo from freeimages.com: by J. Hodge

1947 Cadillac

1947

To keep players gambling at their clubs, Las Vegas, Nevada casinos boosted incentives with offerings such as double odds on craps, bingo prizes of $1,000 ($10,900 today), extra slot machine jackpots and brand new Cadillacs.

1920

It was 3 a.m. on a Monday. About 15 men were gambling in the Desert Club. One who’d been there all night, sitting alone, watching and waiting to make his move was George Strickland. In his mid-30s and a self-named Wobbly, he’d arrived in Tonopah, Nevada, a few days earlier.

Suddenly, he stood, brandished a gun and demanded everyone put up their hands. He relieved each of his money and valuables then stole about $150 ($1,800 today) from the cash register. He backed out the door, instructing those he’d robbed to stay put.

The police tracked Strickland to the town of Millers, Nevada. When they ordered him to surrender, he shot at them and fled along the Tonopah & Goldfield railroad track. He came upon a passenger train heading to Mina, Nevada and decided to hold it up and get the engineer to bypass the next stop. An express messenger on board, however, shot Strickland in the arm, thwarting his plan.

When the officers arrested him, the alleged thief had $375 ($4,500 today) on his person, about half the amount the victims claimed he’d stolen from them. They confiscated the cash, which was to be held in police possession until the court instructed them what to do with it.

Spectacle In Court

During his arraignment, Strickland acted bizarrely.

“He pleaded guilty and then withdrew the plea repeatedly until the attorneys were confused and did not understand what his final decision was — until he was halted in a rambling discourse and induced to go on record with a plea of guilty,” reported the Reno Evening Gazette (July 16, 1920).

During the trial, it came out that he’d planned to get to Mina to acquire more ammunition then return to Millers to fight the officers pursuing him — surefire suicide by cop.

Strickland’s ongoing behavior pointed to some type of mental imbalance and violent tendencies. While in the Tonopah jail, he’d picked several fights. In the courtroom, he attacked the bailiff in the hopes of commandeering his weapon and escaping. Committee members assigned to evaluating Strickland’s sanity offered diverging opinions. The sheriff believed the only safe place for the accused was the penitentiary.

“It is surmised by officers who have been brought in close contact that he is either an escaped convict or a fugitive from an insane asylum,” reported the Reno Evening Gazette (July 16, 1920).

The judge sentenced him to five to 25 years in Nevada State Prison, and Strickland thanked him.

As for the money the convicted criminal had pilfered, if it were returned to the original owners, the men could be convicted of illegal gambling (only some games of chance were allowed then). Thus, the money instead likely wound up in the county treasury.

Tragic Finale

A month later, in August, while in the prison hospital, Strickland picked the lock and found his way into the yard. At risk of being shot by a guard, he scaled the perimeter wall and hotfooted it.

He’d made it about 12 miles when bloodhounds tracked him down in a Carson City mill fewer than three hours later. Recaptured, he was returned to the pen.

The following February, Strickland snatched a razor from the prison’s barber shop and used it to fatally cut his throat.

Sources

Bill Pechart, left, and Dave Kessel

1950-1953

During the 1950 federal hearings on organized crime, two Northern California gamblers — Walter “Big Bill” Melburn Pechart and David “Dave” Nathan Kessel — were uncooperative, according to the questioners.

They were Senators Estes Kefauver (D-Tenn.), Charles Tobey (R-N.H.) and Alexander Wiley (R-Wisc.), congressmen who comprised the Kefauver Committee, or the United States Senate Special Committee to Investigate Crime in Interstate Commerce. During its two-year probe, the group conducted inquiries in 14 major cities across the nation, during which more than 600 individuals testified.

In San Francisco, the committee subpoenaed Bill Pechart and Dave Kessel to testify because they were “big wheels” in illegal gambling along with bookmaking and slot machine enterprises in Contra Costa County, or the East Bay, as described in California Crime Commission reports.

During the 1930s and 1940s the partners owned and operated numerous illegal gambling clubs — including The Wagon Wheel, the 21, the Rancho San Pablo and the Hollywood — in the then-unincorporated area between El Cerrito and Richmond dubbed “No Man’s Land.” They also were former associates of Elmer “Bones” F. Remmer, co-owning at least one gambling house and allegedly bribing politicians to let them operate outside the law.

During those decades, California prohibited all types of gambling except draw poker (legalized in 1911) and horse racing (legalized in 1933).

One-Sided Sessions

At the start of questioning, Kessel, 56, read a statement indicating he wouldn’t answer questions because of potential self-incrimination. He claimed he’d written the verbiage but when asked the meaning of some of the included legal terms, he admitted his lawyer had penned it. Thus, the committee charged him with perjury. Subsequently, he answered nary a question, including whether or not he knew Pechart.

Kefauver described Kessel as “one of the most sinister characters” the committee had interviewed (Oakland Tribune, Nov. 22, 1950). “Very substantial charges as to his operations in Contra Costa County have been made by citizens of that area. He appears from these charges to be a nuisance and a very bad influence.”

Pechart, 57, responded to some queries but invoked his Fifth Amendment right on others, particularly those about the duo’s businesses, income and taxes.

Consequently, the committee cited both men for contempt of Congress, which the Senate subsequently officially affirmed. Kessel was indicted for refusing to answer 32 questions, Pechart for 38.

If convicted, each gambler faced a maximum of one year in prison plus a $1,000 fine for each question they refused to answer: $32,000 for Kessel, $38,000 for Pechart (about $328,000 and $389,000 today, respectively).

Ruling On Contempt

After having pleaded innocent in 1951, the two gamblers went to trial in January 1952.

They were acquitted.

“Taking the whole record and the setting and circumstances in which the questions were asked, there was a right to claim the privilege,” said Federal Judge Louis E. Goodman. Yes, Pechart and Kessel were engaged in illegal gambling and racketeering, but no one can be forced into being a witness against himself.

Goodman also found Senator Tobey to be hostile at times during questioning, which could’ve  contributed to Pechart and Kessel fearing possible prosecution based on any information they might’ve provided.

In one instance, Tobey had asked: “Why in hell didn’t you come clean? When we get through with you, you will wish you had” (Oakland Tribune, Jan. 31, 1952). Another time, the senator had said, “You realize the penalty of breaking faith with this committee. It means a prison sentence.”

“There can’t be the faintest doubt that there was a reality of danger,” Goodman said about the hearing atmosphere, which lacked “impartiality” (Reno Evening Gazette, Jan. 30, 1952).

Kefauver, however, stated there was “no possible excuse” for the gamblers, “two of the most contemptuous witnesses who appeared before our committee,” not having answered questions (Oakland Tribune, Jan. 31, 1952). “It is a great disappointment and very discouraging that they were acquitted of the contempt charge.”

How About Nevada?

Six months after winning their contempt case, Pechart and Kessel tried to enter gaming in Reno, when they applied for a gambling license to run the Palace Club. They claimed to have given up all of their Northern California clubs in 1950. The Nevada Tax Commission, which then granted such permits, denied the men one due to their criminal background.

Sources

Roy Merrill, Maricopa County Sheriff, 1937-1938

1937-1938

Within a year of becoming the Maricopa County Attorney, John W. Corbin began work to expose the illegal gambling taking place in the Arizona region. He set his sights on busting the game operators and the public officials taking money to ignore their activities.

“Gambling houses have been running on a wide-open basis, and slot machines are being operated, unmolested, in some 700 to 1,000 spots in Maricopa County. Gambling interests pay an estimated $35,000 a month [cumulatively] to a score of persons for being ‘left alone,’” Corbin told the press (The Madera Tribune, Nov. 18, 1937). (That total amounts to about $597,000 today.)

Those allegedly accepting graft included three high-profile men in law enforcement: Sheriff Roy Merrill, Justice of the Peace Harry E. Westfall and Sheriff’s Deputy Porter Northroup.

To investigate and obtain evidence, County Attorney Corbin pretended, with public officials, that he was agreeable to and complicit in the gambler protection operation. He sought assistance from two men: George Ash, county attorney investigator, and John G. Handy, Los Angeles-based private investigator. Beginning in September 1937, Handy posed as a “John Wilson,” a middle man between the county attorney’s office and the gamblers (the game owners or operators); he was the person to contact and to pay.

Recording Of Transgressions

Handy met with and collected $3,000 ($51,000 today) from gamblers during October and November. All of the transactions were recorded via then cutting-edge equipment: a Dictaphone system that could capture audio through a wall and microphones. Handy initially worked out of a dwelling at 130 W. Adams Street in Phoenix but later moved his setup to a room in the 16-story Hotel Westward Ho at Central Avenue and Fillmore Street.

Also recorded was a conversation between Handy and Sheriff Merrill that occurred in the 1325½ W. Monroe Street apartment, Corbin having introduced Handy to Merrill as his contact. Merrill, who’d declared his anti-gambling stance during his 1936 campaign and after getting elected in ’37, discussed plans for collecting money from gamblers and named some potential targets who were slot machine operators. Merrill also said Deputy Northroup handled collecting throughout the county for the sheriff’s office.

Northroup was captured on tape telling Handy about having arranged with a specific gambling establishment owner a $1,000 a month payment to the sheriff’s office and suggested the county attorney’s office also collect the same amount.

“So dangerous did the probe become that Corbin, Wilmer, Ash and Mullen transcribed their evidence, had a number of copies made, and placed them for safekeeping in bank vaults in a number of cities between Phoenix and Chicago, it was learned,” reported the Arizona Republic (Nov. 19, 1937). (Mark Wilmer, county special prosecutor, and Ted Mullen, county investigator, also were involved in conducting the probe.)

Downtown Phoenix, Maricopa County, in the 1940s

Lawsuits, Trials, Outcomes

In November, County Attorney Corbin filed criminal complaints against 28 people, including Merrill, Westfall and Northroup, and arrests and raids were carried out. All were charged with the felonies of asking a bribe, offering a bribe and/or conspiracy to carry on gambling games.

The complaint against Judge Westfall alleged that he’d implored Corbin not to pursue criminal proceedings against the defendants who’d been operating lotteries and related devices.

By May of 1938, Corbin and Wilmer had prosecuted eight trials in the countywide gambling crackdown. Two of them were against Sheriff Merrill, who was acquitted both times. Four others resulted in hung juries. Defendants — gamblers — were found guilty in only two.

The following month, Corbin asked for and was granted dismissal of all but one of the remaining felony cases because his office believed the chance of any convictions, based on results to date, was “very remote,” he said (Arizona Republic, June 12, 1938). The charges against Justice Westfall and Sheriff’s Deputy Northroup were among those dropped.

“I want it understood I’m not quitting,” Corbin added. “I say the gambling and graft war will continue in spite of dismissal of the cases.”

Sources