1964-1965

“Build it, and they will come” wasn’t a sure thing for gambling houses in Nevada, particularly ones offering an uncommon game. Case in point is the Barboot Coffee House and Casino in Reno.

The Visionary

C. Mathias “Matt” Skender, moved from Michigan to The Biggest Little City to introduce his favorite gambling game — barbudi — there. Most recently, the Pennsylvania native had worked in various private barbudi clubs at night and as a projects engineer during the day. Prior to that he’d attended Wayne University in Detroit and before, the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh.

What It Is

Barbudi, name variations of which include barbouti, barbooth, barboot, barbouti and barbotte, is a dice game for up to 12 players, believed to have originated in Greece around 450 B.C. After proliferating in Eastern Europe, it made its way to the Near East then to Mexico and, eventually, Canada and the U.S. By the 1960s, barbudi was played by thousands of people in Idaho, Oregon, California and a few other states but wasn’t recognized legally in The Silver State, according to Skender. The game was most popular among certain groups of people, including Greeks, Turks, Basques and Jews.

Educating Regulators

After landing in Reno, Skender applied in February 1964 with the state’s gambling regulators for a license to offer barbudi in a club he planned to open at 208 N. Center Street (between E. Commercial Row and E. Second Street). 

Because the Nevada Gaming Commission (NGC) members were unfamiliar with barbudi, Skender explained and demonstrated it to them. He indicated he’d spent 20 years improving the game and, accordingly, had designed a table layout for it, which he showed them. It contained a row of 12 numbered positions on one side, on which dealers kept track of individual bets using red and green colored markers, each marked with a number between 1 and 12.

The following month, the NGC approved Skender for such a gambling license. For some reason, though, the location he’d chosen for his enterprise didn’t work out, and his license expired.

Seeking Approval, Take Two

To support himself, Skender began driving a cab. He told all of his customers about barbudi and how great it was and invited them to his barbudi establishment once it opened.

It took him nearly a year, but the barbudi afficionado finally scouted out another prospective location, this one on Fourth Street. He’d also, by this time, found some people interested in investing in the enterprise. One was the property’s landlord, Martin Schwamb, the founder of Martin Iron Works located next door. Another was William C. Franks.

In September 1965, Skender reapplied for a gambling license and for him, his wife Betty Skender, Schwamb and Franks to open a gambling club worth $12,500 ($108,000 today). In November, the NGC approved the group for one barbudi game, one poker game and four slot machines.

At Long Last

That same month, Skender debuted the Barboot Coffee House and Casino at 560 E. Fourth Street (between Evans Avenue and Sutro Street). Along with the gambling, he offered Turkish coffee and sandwiches, free for players, but no alcoholic beverages.

At the time, he told the Nevada State Journal (NSJ), “In the year or so that I’ve been here, I’ve met hundreds of people who know barboot and have long wanted a nice place to play the game. I also think it might catch on with a lot of people who would just like to try something new in the way of coffee house gambling” (Nov. 26, 1965).

Not So Fast

In only a few weeks, though, the new entrepreneur realized he’d been overly optimistic. In reality, his Barboot Coffee House just wasn’t getting the level of business he’d thought it would.

He shuttered it, for good.

Why do you suppose this gambling place did poorly?

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Photo: by Christin Gasner, from Pond5.com

Sources

Earl Warren (front center) and the rest of the U.S. Supreme Court justices, 1967

1952-1968

Soon after two new federal taxes — the tax on wagers and the wagering occupational tax — went into effect in late 1951, problems with them arose. (See Part I for a description of and impetus behind the taxes.)

First Complication To Arise

The constitutionality of the occupational tax was called into question. In May 1952 U.S. District Court Judge George A. Welsh flat out declared it federal legislators’ unconstitutional infringement on states’ power and described it as “a police measure enacted by Congress under the guise of a tax bill” (Reno Evening Gazette, May 6, 1952). This ruling came during the trial of a Philadelphia gambler charged with failure to buy the gambling tax stamp.

An editorial in Florida’s Tampa Times pointed out the gambling stamp tax was “contradictory” and “hypocritical” (March 3, 1953).

“It is a case of the federal government on one hand sanctioning gambling, while state and local law enforcement officers are expected to stamp out gambling,” it read. “Winking at gambling because it has become a federal tax revenue producer would be outright hypocritical and against the wishes of the majority of Americans.”

Other critics argued the tax violated wager-takers’ Fifth Amendment right to protection from self-incrimination. On one hand, requiring them to register forced them to provide information that could implicate them in breaking their state’s state anti-gambling law, were that in fact the case, and in doing so, invite prosecution.  Many newspapers, including The Sacramento Bee and The Indianapolis News, published the names of stamp purchasers.

On the other hand, if the wager-takers ignored the federal law, to keep their underground gambling operation secret, they risked federal prosecution for not buying the stamp and registering.

Not So Effective

A second issue was the taxes weren’t achieving the desired ends. A year in, they hadn’t significantly reduced gambling; at best, they’d slightly deterred it. They hadn’t forced gamblers out of business; instead, the operators had gone underground.

The taxes also failed to bring in anywhere near the level of revenue expected. Congress had predicted an influx of about $400 million in the first year, but the actual figure was about $9 million, not even one-third of the predicted amount.

Whereas a flurry of stamp tax buying had occurred after the Revenue Act was passed, taking total sales to over 19,000, purchases dramatically fell off in 1952.

“The professional gamblers soon wised up and developed a ‘wait and see’ attitude,” reported The Tampa Times.

The reasons for the suboptimal results, according to Frank Lohn, chief of the Internal Revenue Bureau’s intelligence division, were that the bureau lacked sufficient staff to go after unpaid gambling taxes and that the constitutionality of the special tax remained undecided.

“Many gamblers believe the high court will overturn the law, and in the meantime they are not too afraid of violating it,” reported the United Press (Reno Evening Gazette, Nov. 1, 1952).

High Court Weighs In … Twice

That was not the case, however; the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the special tax, 6 to 3, in March 1953. About a year later, it ruled that purchasing a wagering stamp tax did not make the buyer immune from possible state prosecution, thus the self-incrimination problem persisted.

Fast forward 14 years to 1967. Significantly fewer gamblers nationwide were buying a tax stamp, 5,917 in that year, for example. About 2,000 gambling tax violation cases were advancing through the courts.

Then in January 1968, in another twist, the Supreme Court, in a 7-to-1 decision, ruled that the stamp tax law violated people’s Fifth Amendment right, but the justices didn’t declare it unconstitutional. Instead, they essentially gave wage-takers a way to avoid prosecution for noncompliance: claim self-incrimination.

The sole dissenter, Chief Justice Earl Warren, said the decision made the law unenforceable and unconstitutional. Justice and treasury department officials predicted it would hamper crimefighting at the federal, state and local levels and jeopardize current prosecutions.

Fix For The Problem

In 1974, Congress passed Public Law 93-499 to replace the two wagering taxes mandated in 1951. The new statute required certain gamblers to buy a $500 (about $2,800 today) wagering tax stamp annually and pay 2 percent on all bets they take. December 1, 1974 was the effective date, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms was tasked with enforcement.

This law avoided the Fifth Amendment issues inherent in the previous one. It did so by prohibiting the federal government from divulging, to any law enforcement agency, private group or citizen, the information gamblers gave, as required, about themselves, their partners, employees and customers.

Types of gambling exempt from the new law were casino betting, state-licensed parimutuel wagering, state lotteries and coin-operated machines on which a stamp tax was charged. 

As with the prior wagering taxes, the purpose of Public Law 93-499 was to “increase federal revenues and curtail an important source for financing criminal activities” — certain types of gambling, reported The Sun-Telegram (Jan. 19, 1975).

Part I

Sources

1951

Gambling is the lifeblood of organized crime.

This was U.S. Senator Estes Kefauver’s conclusion after the Special Committee on Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce, which he headed, concluded its investigation.

The Kefauver Committee’s work, in part, involved conducting hearings in 14 U.S. cities, during which they grilled (sometimes, unsuccessfully) about 600 witnesses, including big-time Mobsters, some of their associates and officials knowledgeable about Mob activity. The 15-month query shone a spotlight on gambling taking place at the time and for years before, most of it illegal, prohibited by law in most states.

The hearings were televised, and Americans tuned in, rapt. The broadcasts opened their eyes to the who, what,  where, when and how of gambling and other organized crime happening all around them. By March 1951, 72 percent of U.S. residents were familiar with the Kefauver committee and what it was doing.

Crackdown On Some Gamblers

As a result of the Senate committee’s findings, Kefauver recommended the federal government impose a 10 percent tax on all gambling. At the same time, U.S. residents, facing a likely federal personal income tax increase, expressed dissatisfaction at gambling operators (gamblers) paying little or no taxes on the loads of cash they made.

These two factors in large part pressured Congress to act, and it did in 1951 but not to the extent Kefauver had suggested. It imposed two taxes* on a subset of gamblers, individuals who received bets from people — bookmakers, numbers writers, and punch board and lottery operators.

The goal was to force these people to pay heavy taxes or go out of business, and in doing so, shrink the  gambling industry nationwide and generate a good chunk of revenue for the U.S.

Trio Of Mandates

One of the new federal levies, called the tax on wagers, was 10 percent of all gross receipts.

The other was an occupational tax, often referred to as the gambling stamp tax. It required wager takers to buy a special tax stamp every year by December 1 and display it in their place of business or, for those without such a location, on their person. The stamp cost $50 (about $525 today).

Anyone required to pay the special tax also had to register with the local Internal Revenue Bureau (IRB) collector and provide their name, home and business addresses and the name and home address of their partners, employees and clients. Once the bureau received the information, it provided a copy to local law enforcement officials and maintained its own public list of all gambling stamp purchasers.

These wagering-related taxes went into effect on November 1, 1951.

Failure To Comply

The penalty for not purchasing the $50 tax stamp was a fine of at least $1,000 ($10,300 today) but not higher than $5,000 ($51,500 today).

Gamblers who had a stamp but didn’t display it were fined, $50 for those who’d forgotten to do so and $100 for those who outright refused to do so.

Providing false information on the relevant forms was punishable by up to $10,000 in fines and five years of imprisonment.

Regarding the 10 percent tax on wagers, IRB Commissioner John B. Dunlap told the United Press that “cases of willful evasion or attempt to defeat the tax will be promptly referred to the department of justice with recommendation for criminal prosecution” (Nevada State Journal, Dec. 5, 1951).

Early Stamp Numbers

By the first deadline, December 1, 1951, a total of 7,706 gamblers had applied for the federal gambling tax stamp. The state of Washington submitted the most applications, at 1,412. Next was Montana, with 902. Nevada, where gambling was legal and wide open, accounted for only 33 applications.

It wasn’t long before problems with these latest federal taxes arose.

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Look for Part II next week.

* Congress enacted the two taxes on wage takers through the Revenue Act of 1951, which also temporarily raised federal individual income and federal corporate taxes.

Sources

A violent episode in a gambling saloon in Hawthorne, Nevada and ensuing events destroyed at least one resident family, the Gonces.

A Little Background

Vollie “Sam” V. Gonce and Kathleen L. Chapman had tied the knot at age 38 and 21, respectively, in Storey County in 1946. It was a second marriage for them both. She’d gotten divorced earlier in the year on the grounds of cruelty, he, a year earlier, because of desertion. The two had four daughters. The family lived in Hawthorne, a former bustling military town with a population of only about 1,900 people in 1951.

Gonce was a blackjack dealer who’d worked in several gambling clubs in Reno. Earlier, in 1938, when living in Colorado and going by Vollie, he’d served time in the state penitentiary for burglary. In his youth, at age 16, he’d seriously injured his left leg in a work accident at an industrial corn production facility, which had led to amputation.

A Vengeful Heart

On Friday, March 23, 1951, Gonce, now age 43 entered Hawthorne’s 222 Club sometimes between 1:30 and 3:00 in the morning and walked up to a table where bartender Leonard E. Erickson was dealing 21. Gonce said to him, “I’ve waited a long time for this” then pulled a 0.32-20 Colt revolver from his pocket and shot him.

Bystander Marie Diggins reacted by trying to wrest the gun away from Gonce. During the struggle, he yelled at her, “I’ll blast your guts out, too” and fired, the impact knocking her down.

Gonce then left and sped away in his 1946 Packard.

Erickson, 37, was married, the father of three and a former Mineral County deputy sheriff. He and Gonce had been feuding over something for a long time, a fact widely known among Hawthorne residents. Erickson’s gunshot wound wasn’t serious.

Diggins’ injury, to her stomach, however, was; she remained in critical condition in Mineral County Hospital for the first three days afterward. Eventually, she recovered to the extent that she could. Diggins, 35, was a civil service employee who worked in the small mining town of Babbitt.

On A Mission

A local group of armed men using Jeeps and an airplane set out into the barren hills around Hawthorne to track down Gonce.

A few hours later, the posse came upon the Packard, parked on the road leading to the Pamlico Mine, about 10 miles southeast of town. The men followed a set of tracks leading away from the car, which took them to a cliff of rocks. Per their report, they spotted Gonce’s lifeless body among them, dead from a gunshot wound to the chest. Suicide was the official ruling.

On or near Gonce’s corpse, the searchers found the Colt, a 0.30-30 Winchester carbine, the man’s cane and a box on which was scrawled, “Hayden Gallop, you are next.” (Gallop was a Hawthorne resident, too.)

Gonce’s pockets contained two notes. One, on the back of an envelope, was a last minute will in which he bequeathed everything to his wife Kathleen.

Another was a pseudo-apology, written on the back of a keno ticket. It read: “Too bad the girl, whoever she is, couldn’t mind her own business … that smart alec bartender … and most of the people of Hawthorne can’t mind their own damned business” (The Sacramento Bee, March 24, 1951).

Tragedy Compounded

About 1.5 months into the aftermath of the entire ordeal, Kathleen Gonce, now age 26, went missing. Her brother, who also lived in Hawthorne, became concerned and started looking for the widow.

Eventually, he located her, in the family car in roughly the same place where her husband allegedly had killed himself.

Kathleen had slashed her wrists. She was dead.

The couple is buried in the Hawthorne Cemetery.

Sources

The Harmony Kid made his living as a traveling gambling cheat in the U.S. and was known from coast to coast. While primarily a card and dice sharp, Lawrence Varner (1865-1933) also perpetrated swindles related to roulette and horse races. He he obtained his moniker because he was born and lived for decades in New Harmony, Indiana.

He was “one of the most notorious gamblers and sporting men in the country,” wrote The Democrat in 1892. That newspaper shared what a colleague of Varner said about him: “That fellow has won more money in the last two years than any three men in the country in his life, but it goes like the wind. He is never broke, though, and has lots of friends in every city in the Union.”

Cons and other crimes were part and parcel of Varner’s career despite his having a family of his own. Here we create a snapshot of his “professional” life through some highlights, presented chronologically.

1886: His Unfailing Bones

This year, craps was introduced in Cincinnati, Ohio. Using his trusty method of cheating, the Harmony Kid stunned the naivete right out of two of the game’s operators there, taking one for $900 ($25,000 today) and the other for $1,100 ($30,000).

During play, Varner “would sling his money around promiscuously and give the house dice a wicked twist with the result that one of them would jump off the table, and on to the floor,” described The Daily Times-Star (June 10, 1924). While retrieving the errant die, he switched out both for his own set of stolen tops and buttons, misspotted dice with which one can’t roll certain losing combos. Varner’s bones lacked ones and sixes, minimizing his chances of landing on the dreaded seven. 

“To add insult to injury, the ‘Harmony Kid’ wrote a scurrilous letter to each of the Cincinnatians in which he told [them] that what [they] didn’t know about that little old game would fill a cistern,” reported The Daily Times-Star (June 10, 1924).

For the rest of his life, the Harmony Kid steered clear of Cincinnati.

1889: Escalated Card Game Dispute

During an argument with an Indiana saloonkeeper, Dallas Tyler, in Washington, Indiana, about a card game, Varner shot him. The bullet hit Tayler on the inside of one of his legs. Varner escaped, and Tyler survived.

1890: Wedding Bells Ring

The Harmony Kid married Laura Warden in Kentucky and went on to have at least two children.

1893: Arrested for Murder

Varner was charged with murdering a George Franklin, who’d been found dead on the train tracks in New Harmony with a fractured skull and two head gashes. He’s last been seen at the fair. It’s unclear why the Harmony Kid was fingered for the crime. During his trial, the jury couldn’t agree, with 10 for acquittal, two for conviction. Eventually, the case was dismissed.

1898: Off To The Great White North

During The Klondike Gold Rush, Varner and some buddies traveled to this region in Canada’s Yukon Territory to make a fortune. Their hopes were dashed, though, when they discovered there really wasn’t any money there for the taking. After six months with nothing to show for their time spent there, the group returned to the Lower 48.

1900: A Needle In A Wheel

With fellow gambling cheat and Indianan Jim Pents, the Harmony Kid swindled Columbus, Ohio gambling room owner John Alexander, known as the Black Prince, out of $400 ($11,000 today) at the roulette wheel. Varner and Pents had broken into Alexander’s place of business the day before and inserted a needle into the wheel. Pressing on the needle stopped the wheel.

On the day of the swindle, the two showed up dressed as farmers. They played some faro and lost. The roulette wheel operator enticed them to try their luck with him, so the duo made a few bets and lost. Then a third man, a secret associate of Varner and Pents, entered the business. He acted as though he was just watching the action, but intentionally stood blocking the operator’s view of the Harmony Kid.

Pents made the bets, and when he signaled, Varner pressed the needle. Every time they did this, they won, an average of $53 a turn. Alexander paid them in certificates of deposit but later, when he discovered they’d rigged his wheel, he stopped payment on them.  

“Not long ago [Varner and Pents] cleaned up $1,400 in Lexington by the same game,” reported the Greencastle Star-Press (July 28, 1900). “They have skinned a [gambling] bank in almost every big city in America. Both men have been principals in similar skinning affairs for years back.”

1903: Clever Horse Race Scam

The Harmony Kid employed a system for betting on the horse races at the pool rooms in New York, New York that generated between $2,000 and $3,000 (about $55,000 to $82,000 today) a day. After months of doing this six days a week at such enterprises in The Big Apple, the proprietors caught on, and they all banned him from their business.

Varner’s scheme was this: In the morning  at every pool room, he left a note with his bet, which was on a horse to come in as good as third. He purposefully always bet on a favorite because there wasn’t any third place money for the horses in this class in any race. He also indicated he wanted the form sheet in a certain newspaper to dictate his payout should he win. Those amounts tended to be prohibitive.

So every time Varner’s horse lost, the bookies had to give Varner back the money he bet, and any time his horse won, they had to pay him a large amount.

“In other words, the poolroom men were being constantly drained out of their money without a chance of winning a cent,” reported The Ottawa Journal (Nov. 7, 1903).

1904: More Creative Cheating

With an accomplice, also from Indiana, the Harmony Kid pulled a different, less complicated roulette cheat. In a gambling room in Pekin, Illinois, the two slowly made their way over to the roulette wheel. After playing and losing for a bit, Varner asked the wheel operator for some cigars. He went to retrieve some, and while away, the Harmony Kid somehow plugged the wheel. After that, the two cheats won on nearly every turn. They only played for a half-hour, but in that time racked up $465 ($13,000 today).

Also this year, Varner fleeced various bookmakers in Hot Springs, Arkansas out of about $9,000 ($247,000 today) in all. At several betting parlors, he and eight other swindlers wagered on various horse races. When the results came over the wires, everyone in his group won and collected their winnings. The announced winners, however, weren’t the actual winners.; the broadcast was fake, previously arranged by Varner.

For this fraud, Varner ultimately was arrested in St. Louis, extradited back to Arkansas and held over for a grand jury investigation. The charge was obtaining money under false pretenses. What happened in the case is unknown as the story disappeared from the headlines.

1910: Four-Minute Fraud

The Harmony Kid blew into Reno, Nevada on a train. It was the last chance to gamble there, as a new law mandated a permanent statewide shutdown by midnight that day. After ambling through the three still open casinos, he sat down to play craps in the Casino. By this time, he’d modified his dice switching modus operandi, pulling them from a sleeve as he pushed it up. Using his infamous misspotted dice, he took the house for $500 ($14,000 today) in only four minutes.

“He made every kind of a complicated bet, shooting continuously, and keeping the dealer so busy paying him that he could not notice the alarming number of sixes and eights,” reported the Reno Evening Gazette (Oct. 1, 1910). “Time up, the Kid left $30 or $40 in bets on the table, substituted the square dice and crapped out immediately.”

He stealthily merged with the crowd and moved to and out the door. Next, he went to the Palace, but quickly left when the craps dealer saw him, as the two knew one another. To make his escape, Varner drove to the neighboring town of Sparks and caught the train out there.

1920: Taking It Overseas

By year-end 1910, all legal gambling in the U.S. had gone away and with it, opportunities for the Harmony Kid to earn money in the way at which he excelled. It appears as though he spent some years serving the country during World War I.

Afterward, in 1920, he went to Europe for the purpose of “commercial business,” as a “salesman,” according to his passport application. Most likely, the only selling he did there was of the lie he was an honest gambler.

There was no mention of him in American newspapers until his passing, in 1933, at which time he was back in the States, Chicago specifically.

Do you know anything about the Harmony Kid you could share?

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Photos: all from freeimages.com

Sources

Nevada was to cease all gambling operations and activity by midnight September 30, 1910* per a new law, already passed.** The final night, a Friday, was unlike any other before.

“Nevada is determined to be good, even if the last remnant of the old west, in which the Brooklyn and Westchester school of fiction writers find rich color, has to go,” according to a Reno news story appearing in the Seymour Daily Republican (June 27, 1910).

Strange Ambiance

The air was electric on Commercial Row, the center of activity in Reno, the state’s largest metropolis at the time, but heightened emotions were palpable. Many residents and visitors lamented the impending end of an era and future chances to win big. Apprehension, even fear, gripped those who made their living in the industry. A piece of black crepe wrapped around the roulette wheel’s nickel and spindle represented the dealers’ grief. Among those opposed to gambling, a sense of triumph dominated.

People Everywhere

The sidewalks were awash with people, adults and children, residents and visitors, honest and dishonest, many wanting to take advantage of this last opportunity. Many wanted to see the inside of a casino and maybe even try their luck at a game. Cheaters wanted to ply their trade while they could.

“It seemed that the entire population of Reno, augmented by that of Sparks and other nearby communities, was abroad,” reported the Reno Evening Gazette (REG) (Oct. 1, 1910). “They had foregathered to witness a spectacle.”

One Big Party

The three big Reno clubs still open — the Louvre, Casino and Palace — were packed, not only with men but, in a rare sight, women, too, not just divorcées but also ladies who’d never set foot in such an establishment before. Many patrons drank at the bar. The crowds around the gaming tables were about nine people deep. Lots of men feverishly tried for a windfall even though the gambling operators imposed a $5 or $10 maximum bet.

“Few were content with seeing the play, most gambled away all they had, and borrowed right and left as the fever caught them,” reported the Nevada State Journal (NSJ) (Oct. 1, 1910). “Suckers were given a free rein, nothing was refused them, and scores who had saved their money for a fling at chance on the last night were ‘trimmed’ of their all in a few turns.”

The gambling clubs were amply staffed with spotters, guards and special officers to prevent a raid or robbery. That didn’t stop the Harmony Kid, however, from taking the Casino for $500 (about $13,000 today).

The majority of women departed the clubs at 7 p.m. due to a city ordinance forbidding their presence in any casino after that hour. Men, on the other hand, continued their feverish quest to get rich quick. By 9 p.m., one had to fight their way to a table to place a wager.

Unexpectedly, the concluding two weeks of Nevada gambling were the “dullest in the history of the game here,” the NSJ reported.

Closing For Good

Nevada locales outside of Reno had shut down their gambling earlier in the week — Carson City on Wednesday; Goldfield and Tonopah on Thursday; and Elko, Fallon, Winnemucca and other towns early on Friday.

That same Friday, Reno’s final closures began about 11:45 p.m. with the Casino. There, Detective John Hillhouse announced from a tabletop that no more cards would be turned, no more dice would be thrown, no more balls would be rolled and no more drinks would be served. He encouraged patrons to quickly and quietly make their way to the door.

About five minutes later, the Louvre manager stood on the bar and, struggling to be heard over the din of the mass of people, announced the time had come.

Finally, at 11:55 p.m., the Palace followed suit but with the added touch of a toast to this sentiment: “The games are closed. Here’s hopin’ they’ll never open” (REG).

Gambling No More

When midnight came, “the death knell of gambling, at least the legitimized sort” sounded in Nevada and, thus, the U.S. as a whole. “The tiger was veiled.”

Immediately after, as the NSJ described, “Instead of the crowded houses, with the balls clicking inside and the lights and gaiety, with talking machines tilling the air with a medley of noises, there was only a quiet street, with the saloon fronts beaming light.”

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* Existing gambling licenses expired on September 30, 1910, the final day of the third quarter.

** This was the first time gambling was abolished in the state of Nevada (since 1865 when it joined the Union). It, was, however, banned in 1864 when Nevada was a territory. Between 1864 and 1909, certain games and types of gambling were legalized at various times.

Sources

“Whenever he gets in a fix, he reaches into his bag of tricks.” That statement not only applied to Felix the Cat but also held true for many gambling cheaters during the 19th and 20th centuries in the U.S. One of their go-to aids was called check cop or sure cop (“cop” meaning “steal” here).

Composition And Use

One source described the product as a liquid chemical adhesive, and another said it was beeswax.

Whatever one’s version was made of, “check cop was an indispensable article in any high class poker game, for what was a fellow to do if he lost his match box mirror or broke his Sullivan knee spread, or went blind and could not read the backs of his marked cards? Ah, that has been well looked after, for any real gamble must be a sure thing. If all devices fail, use check cop,” reported the Syracuse Herald (July 24, 1921).

Cheating dealers or players rubbed or smeared some check cop on the palm of a hand, making a “perfect picking-up surface,” the newspaper described. Then, with the treated hand, they inconspicuously pilfered others’ coins, chips and/or checks. They even used check cop to palm then switch cards, coins or dice during a game.

Distraction Is Key

The Syracuse Herald described how check cop was used clandestinely. “If all else fails, all the craft gambler had to do was to point his right hand at the door and cry, ‘Here comes the cops’ or any of those old Sherlock Holmes attention attractors and slyly slip out his left hand over his adversary’s chips while he’s looking the other way, the check cop on his palm will do the rest.”

The article went on: “Of course only a bungling amateur would resort to the suggested method of distracting his adversary’s attention, the simplest way was just to palm the chips one at a time as the gentleman on your left turned to give an order to the waiter, stooped down to light a match or make any other little unconscious move which took his eyes for an instant off the stack of chips before him.”

Foolproof And Fabulous

About 10 big companies, from which gamblers bought cheating implements, sold their own version of check cop and, thus, relied on advertising to distinguish their own product from their competitors’.

One such novelties business touted its check cop as “the best of the kind on the market. It does not interfere with the action of the hand and a check will adhere to it while the hand is held perfectly flat, yet no particle will adhere to the check,” reported The Fort Wayne News and Sentinel (May 3, 1919).

Another firm, Mason & Co., asserted in its catalog, “Palming is one of the most difficult feats of the profession. With our check cop it is done easily and surely with out [sic] practice.”

Other companies claimed the following about their check cop:

• “We positively will not sell this article to more than one person in a town. Order at once to have things your way.”
• “It will pick up coin the same as it will checks, and anyone can use it successfully without practice.”
• “It can be worked on the wisest gambler without fear of detection.”
• “One very small piece will last an entire night while the dope and plasters offered by other firms will soon become dry and lose their power.”
• “As to price, it is almost nothing. One box will last a long time and it is always ready for use, and it is not affected by cold or heat.”
• “For removing top card and holding out cards, it is just the thing. For palming and switching dice, it has no equal.”

Save Your Money

The Encyclopedia of Gambling noted that an alternative was/is available to cheaters, which is cheaper, more convenient and uses a product many people already have in their home.

“Some cheaters see no need to purchase these preparations; they have their own do-it-yourself methods,” the author wrote. “They simply cook up a piece of adhesive tape and scrape the gummy substance onto their palm. It is just as effective a method.”

Beware Of Users

The existence of check cop and similar products led casinos to require that dealers “clear their hands” before touching their person or leaving their game table. They’re required to turn up their palms to the cameras to show they’re empty and clap their hands to dislodge anything that might be stuck to either one.

Science and Invention in Pictures, in its June 1924 issue, advised: “Be suspicious of the person who ‘monkeys’ with the chips. The man who takes ‘kitty’ or ‘cuts’ the game frequently uses a ‘check cop.'”

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Illustration of player using check cop during game: from Science and Invention in Pictures

Photo of palmed chip: from The Inter Ocean

Sources

The maximum security, federal prison opened in 1934 on Alcatraz Island, 1.25 miles from the coast of San Francisco, California. The facility housed 1,576 of the U.S.’ most dangerous felons, treatment of whom was, at times, brutal and inhumane there. Over time, the penitentiary infrastructure deteriorated to the point where it needed rehabbing. The U.S. government deemed it more prudent to build a new prison rather than overhaul Alcatraz and closed it in 1963.

Among the 1,576 criminals for whom The Rock was home for some duration are five Mobster-gamblers. They are:

Whitey Bulger

In 1956, at age 27, James Joseph Bulger, Jr. (1929-2018) Bulger found himself locked up in the U.S. Federal Penitentiary, Atlanta, facing 20 years for armed robbery of several banks and truck hijacking. When the warden learned the inmate had been plotting to escape, he had Bulger transferred to Alcatraz in 1959. Bulger remained imprisoned there until 1962, then served the rest of his time at two other federal prisons. He was paroled in 1965.

Subsequently, he was an enforcer for the Winter Hill Gang in Somerville (near Boston), Massachusetts. By 1979, he’d became the boss and controlled a large part of Boston’s bookmaking, drug dealing and loansharking operations. While in power, he sanctioned numerous murders and turned FBI informant in 1975.

Bulger went into hiding in the mid-1990s, thereby landing on the FBI’s Most Wanted Fugitives list. He eluded capture until 2011, after which he was tried and found guilty of 11 murders, federal racketeering, extortion and conspiracy.

After FBI agents found and arrested Bulger, he told CNN, “If I could choose my epitaph on my tombstone, it would be, ‘I’d rather be in Alcatraz,'” CBS in San Francisco reported (Aug. 12, 2013).

Frankie Carbo

Paul John Carbo (1904-1976) began his life of crime as a gunman for the New York-based Murder, Inc. enforcement-for-hire group. (He was arrested 17 times for murder and rumored to have assassinated Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel.)

Eventually, Carbo became a member of the New York City Mafia’s Lucchese crime family, a partner in a New Jersey bookmaking ring and a corrupt boxing promoter.

“Frankie Carbo had become the Mob’s unofficial commissioner for boxing and controlled many fighters,” Gary Jenkins wrote in Gangland Wire. In that role, he illegally generated revenue from stealing part of boxers’ purses, fixing bouts and gambling on those.

One of Carbo’s various boxing extortion schemes involved muscling in on the promotional rights to boxer Don Jordan after he won the world welterweight championship in 1958. Carbo was caught threatening promoter Jackie Leonard and convicted of conspiracy and extortion in a trial Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy prosecuted.

The feds sent Carbo to Alcatraz with a 25-year federal prison sentence. When the penitentiary closed in 1963, Carbo was relocated to the McNeil Island Corrections Center in Washington.

Charles Carrollo

For many years, Charles Vincent Carrollo (1902-1979) was the Kansas City Mafia’s lug man, collector of the tax it charged the gambling houses to operate. The Combine controlled a $20 million ($307 million today) a year gambling business in the city as well as other rackets. When the boss John Lazia was assassinated, Carrollo took over as the top dog.  

His reign was short-lived, though, because soon after, he was convicted separately of tax evasion, mail fraud (using the U.S. postal service to promote a gambling scheme) and perjury for lying on his naturalization form. While doing his eight years at the U.S. Federal Penitentiary, Leavenworth, he was caught trafficking narcotics and liquor into the facility. For that, he was sent to Alcatraz in 1943, where he stayed until he was granted parole in 1946.

Mickey Cohen

After 20-plus years of working for the National Crime Syndicate in Los Angeles, Meyer Harris Cohen (1913-1976) lost his battle with the Internal Revenue Service in 1961. At age 49, he was imprisoned at Alcatraz for a 15-year stint for evading and underpaying his federal income taxes.

He served three months there then bonded out, the only Alcatraz prisoner to do so. After six months of freedom, he had to go back. Twenty-eight days after his return, fellow inmates John and Clarence Anglin escaped the supposedly impenetrable island prison. Allegedly, Cohen had arranged for a boat to pick up the brothers and for help getting them to South America.

“All of these big named people — Mickey Cohen, Whitey Bulger — they all wanted somebody to try it and make it,” one of the Anglin’s nephews, David Widmer, told a news outlet in 2016. “If somebody made it, they would all get out.”

Cohen’s involvement in gambling went back to his years in Chicago during Prohibition. There, he worked for the Outfit, both running card games and other forms of illegal gambling and as an enforcer.

Eventually, Meyer Lansky and Louis “Lou” Rothkopf sent Cohen to the West Coast to help Siegel gain control of the territory. There, Siegel and Cohen established a horse racing wire service, launched operations in bookmaking, other gambling, prostitution and drugs, and controlled the labor unions.

Bumpy Johnson

Ellsworth Raymond Johnson’s (1905-1968) career in illegal gambling started with shooting dice for money as a youth. Later, as the head of organized crime in New York’s Harlem, he ran a $50 million ($750 million today) a year numbers, or policy, game, in an alliance with Charles “Lucky” Luciano.

To obtain that business, Johnson “ran roughshod over the numbers bosses of Harlem, giving them the option of working for him or losing their businesses altogether,” reported the New York Post (Sept. 23, 2019). “Most accepted the former and took $200-per-week ($3,000 a week today) salaries, forsaking the thousands they earned on their own.”

Johnson expanded his empire to narcotics, which led to his 1953 conviction and 15-year prison sentence for selling heroin. Ultimately, he served 10 years, at Alcatraz.

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Photo of Alcatraz Island: by D. Ramey Logan, from Wikimedia Commons 

Sources

The colorful career of San Francisco-born Joseph Zemansky (1877-1953) spanned three industries and two countries. After childhood in Sacramento, he spent several decades in California before settling in Nevada.

Here are 10 highlights of Zemansky’s professional life and experiences:

Gambling

1) Zemansky helped establish and operate the immensely popular Agua Caliente Casino and Hotel in Tijuana, Mexico, which opened in June 1928. Along with four others, he was part of the Mexican Development Co., the group behind the resort and initial owners of its gambling concession.

2) Zemansky and his Mexican Development Co. partners came under Internal Revenue Bureau (IRB) scrutiny in 1930 for not reporting for tax purposes their share of $550,000 ($8.9 million today) that the group’s head Wirt Bowman divvied between them. The likely skimmed money had come from Bowman’s records-less Agua Caliente “concession fund,” or bribe fund more accurately. When tax men questioned the quartet, three denied ever receiving any money, and the other two, Zemansky included, claimed they’d only borrowed money from the fund. Lacking proof, the IRB dropped the issue.

3) Zemansky had dealings with the Mafia. He and his brother-in-law Barney Morris opened a bingo club in 1934 in Kansas City, Missouri called Club Fortune. The two owned half, and the Kansas City Combine boss John Lazia owned the other half.

4) The Mob allegedly victimized Zemansky. When Lazia was murdered, his successor, Charles Carrollo, assumed Lazia’s 50 percent of Club Fortune. Then in 1938, Carrollo forced Zemansky and Morris to sell him their half for a ridiculous price, $1 according to one report, $10,000 according to another. (The club generated about $60,000 a month, about $1.1 million today!) The transaction took place, but Zemansky asserted Carrollo hadn’t coerced him and Morris into it and the deal had been profitable.

5) Zemansky debuted another Club Fortune in 1937, this one a nightclub in Reno, Nevada with a casino, cocktail lounge and entertainment, which became known for its large, tango offering. After a successful, 10-year run, Zemansky closed the business in 1947 when the property lease expired.

“At the time it was the outstanding night spot in Western Nevada, featuring an unusual decorative theme of potted palms,” wrote the Reno Evening Gazette (Jan. 12, 1953).

Other Business

6) Zemansky’s other businesses included: Diamond Palace, a pawn shop and jewelry store he and his brothers ran for years, and the House of Props, which rented furnishings, sets and objects to movie studios and theater companies, both in Los Angeles, as well as Heaney’s Jewelry & Loan Co. in Reno, co-owned with George Heaney.

7) Zemansky discovered and, for several years, managed boxer Jack Johnson who went on to become a world heavyweight champion.

Crime

8) Zemansky was robbed twice at his Los Angeles home, in 1933 and 1934. The second time, two masked gunmen bound Zemansky, his wife and nephew with neckties, made Zemansky open the vault and stole $5,000 ($100,000 today) in jewels and $200 ($4,000) in cash.

9) Zemansky was arrested in Reno in August 1945 for leaving open Club Fortune’s basement door, thereby violating a city ordinance. His punishment was a $10 ($150 today) fine.

10) Zemansky passed away from a heart attack at age 75 on January 12, 1953. He was in San Bernardino at the time with his wife, visiting her sister on their way to Palm Springs.

Do you have any additional information about Zemansky to share? 

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Sources

Jack Johnson, Jack Dempsey, Buddy Baer, Joe Louis

1913-1955

Some famous 20th-century boxers got involved in U.S. and Mexico enterprises offering gambling, some of which, but not all, were knockouts.

Jack Johnson

Jack Arthur Johnson (1878-1946) was the first of the group featured here to enter the gambling arena.

This world heavyweight champion between 1908 and 1915 opened and ran two nightclubs in Tijuana during his years of self-exile there, starting in roughly 1913. (He’d fled to Mexico from the U.S. to avoid doing time for his conviction for having violated the Mann Act.)

Johnson had two clubs. One, the Newport, just off of the city’s main tourist strip, catered to black people. Gambling, boxing and entertainment took place there.

His other club, the Main Event, was for whites. It likely offered gambling, too, but this isn’t certain.

Gambling had been legal in Baja, California since February 1908. The law permitted most types of dice and card games and racing but banned roulette and slot machines. However, many casinos and clubs ignored those restrictions.

Johnson curtailed his south of the border entrepreneurial streak in 1920 by returning to the U.S. to serve his prison sentence.

Jack Dempsey

In 1928, Jack Dempsey (né William Harrison Dempsey, 1895-1983) became involved in a hotel-casino in Ensenada, Mexico. At the time, Prohibition was in effect and gambling mostly was illegal in the States. Dempsey no longer was the world heavyweight champion.

That year, construction on Hotel Playa of Ensenada began after Cía. Mexicana de Rosarito acquired the property using mostly capital from U.S. investors.

“The promoters had shrewdly aligned Jack Dempsey to the enterprise,” Maria Bonifaz de Novelo wrote in the article, “The Hotel Riviera Del Pacífico.” Dempsey “was married to a Hollywood star, Miss Estelle Taylor. Their names alone guaranteed a surefire promotion.” One list of the business’ executives showed Dempsey as president; another indicated he was second vice president.

Also, it’s unknown whether he contributed any money to the project or received shares in exchange for his role in it. Reports on both points are mixed. What is known is the company built a luxurious house for Dempsey adjacent to the hotel-casino.

The $2 million resort on the beach opened on Halloween night, 1930. Per Mexican law, the casino only offered gambling between 8 p.m. and 2 a.m. daily, and excluded all servicemembers, police and people under age 21 from playing.

Whereas the Hotel Playa of Ensenada remained in business for eight years, albeit somewhat of a struggle but attracting high-profile guests, such as Lana Turner, William Hearst, Marion Davies and Myrna Loy, Dempsey’s involvement with it was short-lived. Reportedly, he resigned shortly after the grand opening because he disagreed with how management was running the hotel. He never stayed in the home built for him.

Also during this period, Dempsey bought $100,000 worth (about $1.6 million today) of shares in the company that built and owned the Agua Caliente Casino and Hotel in Tijuana. Also, he agreed to help one of the principals, Wirt Bowman, “line up a new group to promote fights” at the resort, the El Paso Herald reported (Aug. 6, 1929).

Agua Caliente Casino

In 1931, Dempsey partnered with big time Reno, Nevada Mobster-gamblers in a different type of undertaking. He, William “Bill/Curly” Graham and James “Jim/Cinch” McKay set out to promote boxing locally.

In preparation for a planned upcoming bout in The Biggest Little City, the trio had about $100,000 worth of improvements (about $1.75 million today) made to Reno’s race track and fairgrounds on North Wells Avenue. The upgrades and enhancements included construction of an outdoor boxing arena and a clubhouse featuring a casino, dining room and boxes, installation of a loud speaker system along with grandstand remodeling and expansion.

The work began in late April, not even a month after the Nevada Legislature legalized gambling. The improvements were done in two months, in time for the start of a summer horse racing meet and the July 4, Dempsey-refereed fight between heavyweights Max Baer and Paulino Uzcudun (the latter won by decision in 20 rounds).

At the improved Reno facilities, patrons participated in parimutuel gambling at machines trackside and played games of chance in the clubhouse casino.

Reno fight arena under construction, clubhouse behind it on the left

Buddy Baer

Prizefighter Buddy Baer forayed into the gambling club business in Reno in 1950. In March, Baer (né Jacob H. Baer, 1915-1986) and restaurant-bar operator Fred Cullincini debuted Buddy Baer’s at 136 N. Center St. in Reno, the former site of the Bar of Music club. Buddy Baer’s offered drinks, dining, entertainment and slot machine gambling.

At the time, Baer no longer was boxing and instead was acting and performing in nightclubs. Also, he still owned, with Cullincini, a similar venture (likely without gambling) in Sacramento with the same name (later changed to Bar of Music), which opened in 1945.

About 10 months after debuting the club in Reno, Baer presumably bowed out as Cullincini changed its name to Freddie’s Lair. It went out of business in October 1951.

Joe Louis

In 1955, former world heavyweight champion Joseph Louis Barrow (1914-1981) and other investors built and opened the history-making Moulin Rouge, Nevada’s first desegregated hotel-casino. From the owners and employees to the patrons and entertainers, this Las Vegas hotspot was fully integrated.

Louis was the spokesman for the resort, which featured a hotel high-rise containing 110 rooms and a casino equipped for 21, craps and with slots. Other amenities included a bar, showroom, swimming pool, restaurant and dress shop.

Despite the big names it drew, both black and white, the business closed six months later, and the casino filed for bankruptcy.

Are there other associations between boxers and gambling-related businesses we didn’t include? If so, we’d love to hear about them.

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Photo of outdoor boxing arena: by Paffrath Studio, from the University of Nevada, Reno’s Special Collections and University Archives

Sources