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1958-1959 Clarence Thayer grew ill with flu-like symptoms on Thanksgiving Day in 1958 while visiting his sister in Oakland, California. He was a well drilling contractor who lived in South Lake Tahoe. He and his…
Today In Ontario, Canada, the appropriately named gambling resort — Fallsview Casino — overlooks Horseshoe Falls, one of the three gushing cascades that comprise Niagara Falls.
1883-1884 A gambling affinity, in part, did in Everton J. Conger’s career as associate justice of the Territory of Montana. President Chester A. Arthur suspended him in March 1883. Conger had served three years in…
1904, 1915, 1936 Against a backdrop of sagebrush and dust in Nevada’s early, remote mining towns, saloons drew men for drinking and gambling. That combination, along with contrarian/antagonistic personalities, sometimes led to disputes that turned…
1959 In February, The New York Times outed Clifford A. Jones. It brought to light that he held gambling interests in and out of Nevada, which The Silver State’s gaming law then prohibited. It was…
1933 When panhandling in Bakersfield, California, an Arthur J. Hayden received 25 cents ($4.70 today), which he took to a casino and parlayed into $690 ($13,000 today). The next day he grew his winnings to…
1924-1932 The story of the estate of a long-ago Nevada gambler after his passing is strange and unfortunate. John Quinn was a man who’d lost and made large fortunes in gambling and mining stock deals…
1929 Le Casino Municipal in Cannes, France broke its record in January for the highest amount of money (in chips) in play at a baccarat table — $1 million ($14.3 million today). “Though individual bets…
1916 The year brought indictments in Las Vegas against individuals for violating Nevada’s anti-gambling statute, which was unusual because law enforcement generally ignored or poorly enforced it. Operating a gambling game then constituted a felony.…
1923 A new man in town was thought to be the famous Irish American boxer Edward “Gunboat” Smith. But when the City of Reno police arrested him as a suspect in a $310 ($4,500 today)…
1949 The article, “Las Vegas Gamblers Arming in Control Battle,” ran on the front page of a Los Angeles newspaper in the third week of December, to the chagrin of Nevada gambling regulators, casino owners,…
1953 The Sands hotel-casino in Las Vegas, Nevada offered craps not poolside but in the pool! Photo from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas’ Digital Collections