Entrance to Bally’s Las Vegas Hotel & Casino

Today

Bally Manufacturing Corp., at one time decades ago, was heavily involved in the gambling industry. It owned six hotel-casinos in the U.S. It was a major producer of state lottery games and developer of slot and video poker machines.

After its peak, the corporation divested all of its various but its hotel-casino (some still use the Bally name), and changed its name in 1994 to Bally Entertainment Corp. to reflect its single focus.

However, in 1996, Bally sold its casino properties to Hilton Hotels Corp., which, since, sold them, too.

Here’s the current status of former Bally-owned hotel-casinos: 

Louisiana:
Bally’s New Orleans: now closed

Mississippi:
Bally’s Casino Tunica: now 1st Jackpot Casino Tunica, owned by Gaming & Leisure Properties

Nevada:
Bally’s Las Vegas: now Bally’s Las Vegas Hotel & Casino, owned by Eldorado Resorts
Paris Las Vegas: owned by Eldorado Resorts
Bally’s Reno: now Grand Sierra Resort and Casino, owned by the Meruelo Group

New Jersey:
Bally’s Park Place: now Bally’s Atlantic City Hotel & Casino, owned by VICI Properties

Photo from Wikimedia Commons: by Pedro Szekely

Charles Cora’s headstone

1855-1856

Charles and Arabella “Bell” Cora were a colorful, rich and well-known San Francisco couple whose lives jolted into misfortune one Saturday night in 1855.

He, 39, had made his money from dealing faro in Northern California mining camps and the city during The Gold Rush. Prior, he’d broken numerous faro banks in Louisiana and Mississippi, consequently, was banned from many gambling houses. He was “the foremost faro player on the Mississippi,” R.K. DeArment wrote in his article, “Gambling in the Old West.”

She, 27, had earned her wealth as a madam of a high-end brothel on Dupont and Washington streets. Though the two weren’t married, Bell used his last name.

“At the pinnacle of their professions, they were the elite of the sporting crowd, well acquainted with the top political and professional leaders of the city,” wrote Charles L. Convis, author of True Tales of the Old West: Gamblers.

Mutual Provocation

On Thursday, Nov. 15, the Coras were watching the play, Nicodemus, at the American Theater when during intermission, some men seated below recognized and shouted out to Bell. She playfully acknowledged them, after which both parties gestured bawdily to one another.

Sitting in front of the Coras, the wife of General William Richardson, a U.S. marshal, took great offense and asked her husband to make them stop. William, 33, demanded the Coras leave, but they wouldn’t. He asked the manager to force them out, but he, too, refused.

“The Richardsons stalked out, bitterly denouncing [Charles] Cora and Bell,” Convis reported.

Can’t Let It Go

The following night, Charles and William encountered one another again, first on the street then in the Cosmopolitan Saloon, where they had words in between drinks.

The next afternoon, William loudly went from watering hole to watering hole looking for Charles and revenge. When he found him, though, he seemed to have forgiven him as both imbibed more alcohol together at two watering holes before parting.

Later, William approached Charles in front of Montgomery Street’s Blue Wing Saloon and together they walked down Clay Street.

When they stopped at the corner of Leidesdorff, Charles aimed and fired his pistol at William’s heart. Dead almost immediately, William slumped to the sidewalk.

“One version has it that [Charles] Cora slammed [William] Richardson against a building, pinning his arms, and, as Richardson screamed ‘Don’t shoot! I’m unarmed,’ Cora shot him in cold blood,” wrote Dr. Weirde in the article, “For Whom the Belle Toils.” “Another version: Cora collared Richardson, Richardson reached for his weapon, and Cora fired first in self-defense.”

The Daily Alta California noted, “Murders have been committed for robbery or from motives of revenge, but for this last there appears to have been no inciting cause but an unnatural thirst for blood” (Nov. 18, 1855).

Justice With A Twist

The police arrested Charles, whose trial took place in March of the next year. For his defense, Bell hired a slew of attorneys, two of whom later would become U.S. Senators — E.D. Baker (Oregon) and James A. McDougall (California).

Baker’s fee alone was $30,000 (a $725,000 value in 1913, the earliest year for which conversion is available). Bell paid him half, all of which he immediately lost while playing faro.

The jury was hung and Charles, beyond bars, awaited a second trial in April.

Before that could occur, about 3,000 citizens angrily stormed the jail, armed with shotguns, rifles, swords, knives, and revolvers. Agitated by a second recent murder — that of newspaper man James King by city supervisor James P. Casey over a disparaging editorial — the newly reformed Vigilance Committee demanded Charles and James Casey’s release. He and his men greatly outnumbered, the sheriff complied.

The mob held unofficial trials for both men, who were found guilty. The minimum for a majority found Charles guilty; as for James, the same verdict was unanimous.

The committee members allowed Charles to marry Bell, which he did inside “Fort Gunnybags,” the vigilantes’ jail. At 1:15 p.m. that day, Thursday, May 22, from poles they rigged on their office building’s roof, they publicly hanged both men and left them there for nearly an hour.

“Almost every man, woman and child in the city was either a spectator or participator,” reported California’s Sacramento Daily Union (May 24, 1856).

Sources

Photo from the San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library

1953

On a weeknight in May, Louisiana state policemen surrounded a high-end home in the New Orleans suburbs. One of them knocked on a secret side door that contained a one-way glass window, allowing those inside to see out but not those outside to see in. A man in the house opened the door but slammed it shut once he realized who was there. Using sledgehammers, the troopers penetrated that and another door and entered.

Inside, they saw that much of the residence had been converted into an illegal casino. The living room, dining room and a third, smaller room all contained gambling equipment. A cocktail bar in the basement served guests.

Scattered throughout these areas were about 40 to 50 people, several of whom fled upon seeing the authorities. Three even jumped out of a window.

Operating Clandestinely

In the 1920s, parimutuel horse race betting became the only legalized form of gambling in Louisiana, although many casinos operated out in the open anyway, unlawfully, and this went on for decades. However, many of those enterprises went underground after Senator Estes Kefauver and his fellow committee members, in New Orleans in 1951, held hearings on organized crime. Following that probe, Jefferson Parish Sheriff Frank J. Clancy closed the area’s gambling houses.

One of those shuttered illegal clubs was O’Dwyer’s,* which had been owned and operated by brothers George L. and Rudolph “Rudy” T. O’Dwyer. Previously, the duo had run gambling establishments in New Orleans.

The home where the raid took place belonged to George’s son, Edward L. O’Dwyer.

Too Much Stress?

When she saw the police activity, Edward’s aunt and next-door neighbor telephoned her brother, George, and told him what was happening at his son’s home.

Immediately, George jumped in his car and sped to the scene. While pulling into his sister’s driveway, he suffered a heart attack and died on the spot!

Netting A Jackpot

Meanwhile, from the various gaming rooms in Edward’s home, troopers seized three roulette and three blackjack tables, $1,300 in cash (about $12,000 today) from various strongboxes and four loaded revolvers discovered in a cabinet.

“[It was] the most gambling equipment we’ve gotten on any raid,” Col. Francis Grevemberg said of the haul (The Monroe News-Star, May 27, 1953)

The state policemen released all the players but arrested the five operators, none of whom was an O’Dwyer, on illegal gambling charges. It’s unknown what happened to these men subsequently.

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* O’Dwyer’s, open from 1949 to 1951, was located at 100 Jefferson Highway, New Orleans. It’s now a Salvation Army store.

Sources

1950

For Hollywood’s Academy Awards, Las Vegas, Nevada casinos offered even money on All The King’s Men, the favorite for Best Movie. The other nominees and their odds were Battleground, 5 to 2; The Heiress, 9 to 2; and Twelve O’Clock High, 10 to 1.

In fact, Sin City had it right; the Oscar for Best Movie went to All The King’s Men, a story loosely based on the career of Huey Long, former Louisiana governor who, for one, allowed mobsters to run illegal gambling freely in the state in exchange for payoffs. (A remake of the film came out in 2006.)