Commemorative bronze statue of Binion in Las Vegas, Nevada

Today

Although Texas-born Lester B. “Benny” Binion (1904-1989) no longer is with us, he remains a legend among Las Vegas casino owners and operators — gamblers, in industry parlance.

Iconic even in his appearance — large in girth and ever clad in a cowboy hat and boots — Binion was complex. The dichotomous traits he embodied likely helped him attain success; he was charming yet cruel, a family man yet a criminal, and minimally educated (through the second grade) yet savvy in business.

“For those who understood the real game being played in Las Vegas and America, Benny was one of the most influential, and feared, men of his time; and in that enormous power, if not in his crude style, he set an example,” wrote Sally Denton and Roger Morris in The Money and The Power: The Making of Las Vegas and Its Hold on America.

Binion is remembered for owning and operating the Horseshoe Club in Southern Nevada and allowing players to place high-stakes bets on craps at a time when other gambling houses wouldn’t. He also launched the famed World Series of Poker tournament in 1970.

Down And Dirty Details

That’s the part of his story that prevails. Here are 10 lesser-known facts about Benny Binion:

1) He was an FBI informant for a time, providing the governmental agency with the inside scoop about various Las Vegas gamblers and their enterprises.

2) He murdered at least two men — Frank Bolding, a man whom he suspected of stealing liquor from him during his bootlegging days, and Ben Frieden, a competitor in the policy racket in Dallas, the latter slaying earning him the nickname “The Cowboy.” He wasn’t ever charged for the killings. Despite admitting both to Nevada gaming regulators, they granted him a gambling license.

3) His gambling start was running a lucrative numbers operation in Texas.

4) He couldn’t read, write or do basic math.

5) His father was a drunk and excessive gambler, and his brother, Jack, died in a plane crash at age 23.

6) He was openly racist toward African Americans.

7) He secretly brokered the funneling of millions of dollars from prominent Dallas bankers to Las Vegas mobsters and took a 5 percent cut for his services. One such transaction was $500,000 (about $5.1 million today) that Republic Bank provided to Moe Dalitz, the Cleveland mob’s representative in Sin City, for construction of the Desert Inn hotel-casino.

8) Following a drawn out extradition battle and legal wrangling that went to the U.S. Supreme Court, he served 3.25 years, from Dec. 1953 to March 1957, in the U.S. Penitentiary Leavenworth in Kansas on federal charges of tax evasion and state charges of illegal gambling,

9) After his release from prison, he sold the remaining, non-mob-owned interest of the Horseshoe to mobster Meyer Lansky and associates through their front man, Ed Levinson, because Binion needed money to pay past taxes (eventually, he bought back 100 percent of the casino).

10) He applied for a presidential pardon five times but wasn’t granted one.

Sources

1926-present

By 1963, major casino owners in Reno, Nevada thought the downtown fixture was outdated and ugly compared to their modern buildings on Virginia Street. They even offered to pay for it and its maintenance for five years.

That was the Reno Arch, a famous city landmark.

They probably had a point. The arch originally had been installed in 1926 to celebrate completion of Highway 40 and advertise the associated exposition slated for the next year. In fact, the sign had read: “Reno / Nevada’s Transcontinental Highways Exposition June 29–Aug 1, 1927.” It spanned Virginia Street at Commercial Row.

The city, however, had changed the verbiage in 1929 to: “Reno / The Biggest Little City in the World.”

Some of the initial slogans in the running (oh, my) were:

• Reno, The West’s Highest Assay
• In Progressive Reno, Loiter, Linger, Locate
• Reno, Biggest Little Town On Earth
• Reno, A City You’ll Like
• Reno, The Best Out West
• East Or West, Reno Serves Best

Five years later, after numerous complaints about the new tagline, primarily by local organizations (some residents even wanted the entire sign taken down), the city had removed it, having left simply the word “RENO” in neon green letters. This change, too, upset some Renoites. Ultimately, in 1935, Reno had returned the slogan.

The new 1963 arch spotlighted the same wording but featured a mod style and colors — yellow, white and blue. A revolving star, encircled with lights, topped it. Creation of the sign cost Reno’s gambling consortium — Harolds Club, Primadonna Club, Nevada Club, Colony Club, Horseshoe and Poor Pete’s — about $100,000 (roughly $777,450 today).

Today’s arch, the third version, debuted in 1989, having undergone a makeover.

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