history of gaming

Casino Dealer, Accomplice Execute Elaborate Crime in Las Vegas, Part I

1977 The couple’s harrowing experience started at their Las Vegas home. Two men disguised with faux facial hair and odd outfits nabbed First National Bank of Nevada executive Reno N. Fruzza as he entered his…

Funny Business at Beverly Hills Card Club Spans Years

1962-1969 The Friars Club in Beverly Hills had been a favorite haunt of Hollywood celebrities and the area’s wealthy since 1946, but something underhanded began happening there in the 1960s, unbeknownst to most of its…

Reno Mobsters Aid Gangster From Chicago, Raising Suspicions

1936 A man walked into the Greenleaf & Crosby jewelry store in New York’s Rockefeller Center at about 11 a.m. on Monday, January 6. Two others followed through the other entrance. “This is a stickup,”…

Mobster-Gambler Frank Frost Leaves Crime Trail in Chicago, Los Angeles, Reno

1906-1967 Frank “Frankie” Frost (1898-1967) spent about two decades working in Reno’s gambling scene and had close relationships with those in power locally, including gambler-Mobsters William “Bill/Curly” Graham and James “Jim/Cinch” McKay and banker and…

"Bugsy's" Death Affects Granting of Nevada Gambling Licenses

1947 “The Flamingo Hotel, one of the nation’s most elaborate establishments, was [Benjamin] Siegel’s baby and was set to be the operating headquarters for his syndicate which embarked on a program to control gambling in…

10 Intriguing Facts About Gambling Legend Meyer Lansky

Meyer Lansky, né Maier Suchowljansky (1902-1983), just may be the U.S. icon of 20th century gambling, illegal and legal. After being instrumental in creating the National Crime Syndicate, an amalgam of Italian-American Mafia and Jewish-American…

Suspects in 1968 Bombing Death of Barney's Club Co-Owner Deceased

1968 On Aug. 27, 1968, a dynamite bomb rigged under his Cadillac’s floorboard caused the violent death of Richard “Dick” Louis Chartrand, 42, a co-owner of the Barney’s Club and South Tahoe Nugget casinos in…

The World's Cleverest, Most Successful Card Cheating Apparatus

1888 It was the “very finest … the world has ever seen … a masterpiece,” wrote John Nevil Maskelyne in his 1894 book, Sharps and Flats: A Complete Revelation of the Secrets of Cheating at…

Yesterday and Today: Collecting on Gambling Debts in Nevada

1864-1983 While being plied with endless, free whisky highballs,* Hamilton Buck played roulette for hours at the Texas gambling-saloon** in Goldfield, Nevada. Then, in 1908, the northwestern mining town was nearing the end of its…

Midwestern Casino Worker Leads Double Life

1933-1972 It was a typical Tuesday at the First National, and only, bank in the small Spring Valley, Minnesota community, population about 2,000, until gunmen burst through the doors and ordered everyone to lie on…

Murder on a Gambling Ship on the High Seas

1932 “There are no dull moments on the Rose Isle,” the invitation to prospective customers for dinner and dancing on the Southern California gambling ship read. Apparently, the excitement also included murder. The Crime And…

Gambler Adds Device to Get Roulette, Craps Defined as Slot Machines

1937 After Florida legalized slot machines in 1935, casino operator Myrton “Mert” Wertheimer, 53, devised a way to also get craps and roulette, unlawful at the time, allowed under the new rule. (Previously, only dog…