Nevada legislators proposed a bill that would disallow any future installation of slot machines in grocery and drug stores, but it died in the Senate Taxation Committee.

When Nevada legislators legalized gambling in 1931, they didn’t consider one significant caveat.

The omission came to light in January 1955 when an industrious Las Vegas casino patron was arrested for using Mexican 10 centavo coins in 25 cent slot machines — an act called slot slugging. Apparently, the coins fit perfectly.

The judge ruled the gambler hadn’t broken any law, dismissed the case and suggested lawmakers revise the statute.

They did. In February 1955, Nevada Governor Charles Russell signed into law AB70, which read in part: “It shall be unlawful to use anything but a coin minted by the U.S. government in a slot machine. Violators may be punished by up to six months in jail and/or a $500 fine.” It also forbade cheating casinos by using marked cards, loaded dice and other devices. Violation would be a misdemeanor.

That didn’t stop people from trying to get away with it, though. At least three more incidents occurred that same year. A 64-year-old Salt Lake City resident was caught and arrested in the rural town of Tonopah for feeding Mexican coins into a one-armed bandit. He’d had a roll of the currency hidden in his coat sleeve. In May, two Californians were arrested for the same infraction in another rural place, Smith Valley. In June, a 30-year-old woman from Texas also was busted in Reno.

An Unexpected Tender

Later in 1955, casino operators began finding specific wooden nickels in their slot machines, which displeased them.

They were pieces that merchants in Sparks (city adjacent to Reno) had handed out as part of the Chamber of Commerce’s celebration of the city’s 50th anniversary; 10,000 had been distributed. They were redeemable for five cents’ worth of merchandise or cash from the chamber.

Some people, though, were gambling with the promotional discs instead. Chamber officials apologized, noting there wasn’t much else they could do.

“The old adage which says, ‘Don’t take in any wooden nickels’ is being bandied all over town. The whole thing is pretty funny to everybody except the harried gambling club owners and to law enforcement agencies,” a United Press reporter noted (Nevada State Journal, Sept. 20, 1955).

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1955

It’s hard to believe this ever happened in Nevada.

As an emergency measure, the state government approved a temporary moratorium on issuing gambling licenses. It was to last five months, until 30 days after the 1955 legislative session adjourned.

The freeze applied only to applications submitted to the tax commission after the legislation went into effect, not those already filed and pending. Naturally, immediately preceding enactment of Assembly Bill 104, a slew of new applications entered the system.

The moratorium was to fend off public attacks on Nevada’s $89 million ($791 million today) a year gambling industry for being dominated by mobsters and to show the public the state was tackling the problem. Nevada’s legislators were to use the moratorium period to consider revising the state’s few gambling laws.

The licensing suspension was badly received, particularly in Southern Nevada where certain parties believed it was the legislators’ way of curbing growth on the Las Vegas Strip. Even tax commission members publicly criticized it.

“Many of the legitimate honest people who live in Nevada and have lived here a long time are being held up by this moratorium, and they are not the people who are causing all this trouble,” said Paul McDermitt, tax commissioner of Las Vegas. “I feel that some of the larger licenses are the crux of the thing” (Nevada State Journal, Feb. 3, 1955).

Gov. Charles Russell, the commission chairman, complained that when the moratorium had first been run by him, it was to encompass all applications, with which he agreed. Yet, the law the legislature passed exempted those that were pending. The chances are pretty good shady characters were linked to at least one of those.

Step Toward Greater Control

During that legislative session, the state Assembly and Senate both introduced bills requiring creation of a three-member gambling control board—Assembly Bill 236 and Senate Bill 170, respectively.

AB236 would transfer all gambling control from the tax commission to the new agency whereas SB170 would allow the board to make recommendations on licensing actions to the tax commission, which would have the ultimate say. Under AB236, the governor would appoint the members from a list of candidates compiled by a legislative committee while SB170 would allow the governor to appoint those of his own choosing who then would have to meet tax commission approval. 

SB170 prevailed, establishing the Nevada Gaming Control Board (NGCB). It afforded the NGCB the power to determine which applicants were suitable for gambling licenses.

After passing that bill in March, legislators quickly repealed the moratorium, which had been in effect for only two months.

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Clip art: by Dosnerd90