1949

The Smiths, who owned and operated Harolds Club in Reno, Nevada appropriately named their casino Roaring Camp.

Generally, a roaring camp was “a gold-prospecting camp characterized by wild behavior, unrestrained drinking and gambling,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

Specifically, Roaring Camp was an actual mining settlement in California’s Amador County, on the Mokelumne River where forty-niners prospected for gold.

Also, Roaring Camp was the name of the fictional California gold mining town in American author Bret Harte’s 19th century short story, “The Luck of Roaring Camp.”

Harolds’ Roaring Camp isn’t around anymore, but California’s Roaring Camp is, as a tourist spot, Roaring Camp Mining Co.

Source: Reno Evening Gazette (Nev.), March 30, 1949.

1953

Harrah’s in Reno, Nevada proposed, to event officials, the casino host an exhibit about gambling at the California State Fair. With a backdrop of silver dollars, the display was to contain gambling equipment and pamphlets on how to play various games, among other items.

The idea went over about as well as the handling of a casino cheat caught in the act.

“What they are advertising is against our state law,” said Dr. J. E. McConnell, a member of the fair board of directors. “I can’t see why we should give them anything — even lip service.”

McConnell said the proposal sounded “as if we’re being taken for a bunch of country yokels.”

(This wasn’t the first gambling-related story involving a regional fair.)

Source: Nevada State Journal, “Californians Scorn Exhibits on Gambling,” July 18, 1953.

1946

A Reno, Nevada casino hired a man, new to the city and gambling, as a shill. (A shill is paid to play games in a gambling house to entice others around to do the same.) The floor manager gave him $20 (about $300 today) to gamble with at a specific game, which he did for a while. Then the shill disappeared.  

Just when the manager thought employee and cash were gone for good, the shill showed back up.

“Here’s $800” ($11,500 today), he said. “I couldn’t win in here, so I went into the club across the street and had a little better luck!”

The two guys split the winnings 50/50.

Source: Nevada State Journal, “Nevada Story: This Couldn’t Be Elsewhere,” March 3, 1946.

1938-Today

Bets placed, spectators occupy the stands, waiting. Anticipation, excitement fill the air. Finally, the get-ready bell dings, and the crowd quickly quiets.

The start signal sounds. The gates open. Out lunge the competitors, into an immediate sprint. Hunting instinct kicks in. They deftly chase a single lure, sometimes a hare, unaware it’s fake.

Muscles in their lithe bodies bulge as they round the track. Their stride is wide, their motion smooth. They run as fast as 45 miles per hour.

In a flash, 30 seconds or so, they finish the lap. The winner is announced. Payouts are made.

This described activity, live dog racing as a gambling form, never really took off in The Silver State like it did in others, such as Florida and Oregon.

Today, it’s illegal, per Nevada Revised Statute 466. The law dictates that running such an operation is a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of up to $1,000 and/or a jail term up to six months. Anyone with such a conviction also could be disqualified from obtaining or maintaining a gambling license. (Dog racing without gambling, that doesn’t violate any animal cruelty laws, is legal in Nevada.)

Maiden Races In Nevada

The first dog racing with gambling in Nevada took place in 1938 and 1939 at the Reno Speedway at Lawton’s Hot Springs just west of Reno. (The first dog track was built in the U.S. in 1919, in California.) Presumably, these races at Lawton’s were held illegally because existing Nevada laws that legalized gambling didn’t cover dog racing or optional betting. At the same time, no law specified either as being prohibited. With optional betting, wagerers purchased options on dogs of their choice, and winners redeemed their options for cash.

All was quiet on the Nevada dog racing front until 1947.

The Pot Gets Stirred

In September of that year, some Los Angeles-based promoters doing business as the Nevada Turf and Kennel Club applied to the Nevada  Racing Commission for a license to conduct dog racing in Reno. Three members comprised the commission — Ernie W. Cragin and J.K. Houssels, in Las Vegas, who opposed dog racing, and Tom G. Wheelwright, of Ely, who didn’t.

The racing commissioners denied the permit for a few reasons. Primarily, they believed the applicants were more interested in the gambling element than the racing one. Also, commissioners declared dog racing to not be in Nevada’s best interest.

With the assistance of Reno attorney Douglas Busey, the race promoters filed a writ of mandamus that would make the racing commission grant them the license they’d requested.  

Judge Merwyn Brown of Winnemucca heard arguments on the petition in December and announced his ruling two months later.

He determined the license denial lacked merit, given the commissioners had failed to provide any evidence to support their reasons for it. Brown stated, too, the commissioners had overstepped their bounds in that the question of whether dog racing was good or bad for Nevada was a public policy matter, and thus under the Legislature’s purview, not theirs.

Thus, Brown ordered the commission to issue a license to the Nevada Turf and Kennel Club, and in doing so, essentially declared dog racing with gambling legal.

Despite the green light, the license recipients never followed through with a track and races, for unknown reasons.

Pros And Cons

With the issue fresh in Nevadans’ minds, during the 1949 Nevada legislative session, the Senate introduced bill 103, which sought to ban dog racing by classifying it as a public nuisance.

Proponents of the measure claimed dog racing wasn’t clean (doping was prevalent), not established in The Silver State and without state laws to control it.

Opponents argued dog racing would bring more tourists to Nevada and increase much-needed revenue for it. At the time, dog racing was legal in eight states, including California and Oregon. At least four lobbyists from California aggressively sought to get the bill defeated. According to Nevada Assemblyman James Johnson (D.), White Pine County, some of their tactics were unacceptable.

“One of them even intimated to me that they didn’t have any money now but that if we killed this bill they might have some within a year or two and they intimated they might be able to pay off later,” Johnson said (Reno Evening Gazette, March 12, 1949).

Assemblyman Harry Claiborne (D.), Clark County, argued that allowing dog racing wasn’t worth any amount of money and if it was permitted, “you’re going to have in two years the biggest mess in Nevada that you’ve ever had with gambling” (Nevada State Journal, March 13, 1949).

Governor Vail Pittman signed SB103 into law in early April 1949. (Interestingly, while the bill added dog racing as a public nuisance, it removed prostitution as one.)

The Issue Revisited

Walking back its longtime stance on dog racing, the Nevada Legislature passed a bill in 1973 allowing greyhound racing but only in Henderson and only when held in conjunction with horse racing.

In December 1976, the racing commission granted a license to Las Vegas Downs Inc. to hold dog racing 200 days a year and horse racing, 100 days, once the track is built. The commission also waived the horse racing requirement for the first season.  

In August 1977, the same agency granted David J. Funk & Associates a gambling license to manage the proposed (it still hadn’t been built) Henderson dog and horse race track. Funk and his family had lots of experience in this area, having run multiple dog tracks in Arizona.

Financing problems delayed dog track construction time and time again, but it finally happened in 1980. The track opened in mid-January 1981, offering daily racing and parimutuel betting.

For the second season, by law, the track had to be modified for horse racing, another expense, and it wasn’t done. This ended dog racing in Henderson.

No More Wavering

Starting in the 1990s, many U.S. states reversed their laws that legalized live dog racing plus betting. Nevada was the eighth state to do so. It lowered the final curtain on this gambling form in 1997. The pertinent statute, NRS 466.095 reads: “Issuance of license to conduct dog racing or pari-mutuel wagering in connection with certain dog racing prohibited.”

The law remains in effect today, nearly a quarter-century later.

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Top greyhound photo: By Matt Schumitz, from Wikimedia Commons

Sources

1937-1970s

For Harrah’s, which debuted in Reno in 1937 as a bingo parlor, extensive advertising was key to its growth into one of Nevada’s largest gambling empires by the 1970s.* However, owner/operator William “Bill” Fisk Harrah‘s approach to publicizing his clubs primarily was to copy what competitor Harolds Club already had done.

“[Harrah’s] promotions were aimed at Harolds,” wrote Leon Mandel, author of William Fisk Harrah: The Life and Times of a Gambling Magnate. wrote. “In perfect accord with the Harrah style, they were — at least many of them — stolen from Harolds itself.”

A Humble Start

For about the first 10 years, during which the club solely offered bingo, and some employees themselves wrote ads for the business, keeping such work in house.

Then when the gambling tycoon expanded his business to a full casino in the mid-1940s, he engaged local firm, Wallie Warren & Associates, to assume advertising responsibilities. However, Harrah wasn’t impressed with the agency’s one advertising man, according to Mandel.

A Campaign With Teeth

Sometime in 1958, the gambler switched to Reno’s Thomas C. Wilson Advertising Co. One of the agency’s ad campaigns for Harrah’s was the “I won a jackpot” postcards. Here are some of the first ones circulated. (Warning: Much of the content is politically incorrect and offensive today.)

Note the images are oriented horizontally, all of the letters in “Harrah’s Club” are the same color, red, and the location cited is “Reno.”

Going Out Of State

In 1955 Harrah opened a second casino at Lake Tahoe in Stateline, and the postcards changed slightly as a result. Specifically, they now named the locations of both properties.

As the two Nevada Harrah’s operations grew, so did their advertising demands. In 1961, Harrah’s director of advertising, Jack E. McCorkle, sought an agency with the manpower to meet the gambling company’s needs.

After four months of searching, McCorkle contracted Hoefer, Dieterich & Brown Inc. in San Francisco, California. This firm’s efforts turned Harrah’s into a household name. 

The postcards evolved further.

Note the images now are vertically oriented, the casino name no longer includes “Club” and each letter in “Harrah’s” is a different color, none of them red.

Big Fat Copycat

It wasn’t Harrah’s but, rather, its biggest competitor, Harolds Club, that blazed the advertising trail for Nevada casinos. Harrah’s simply copied Harolds’ successful formula.

In 1941, the Smiths who owned and operated Harolds Club installed 25 roadside billboards** within 500 miles of their Reno gambling house, which indicated fun was to be had there. All of the signs challenged whoever saw them to make their way to The Biggest Little City, but none mentioned gambling.

Before Thomas C. Wilson Advertising created and placed ads for Harrah’s, it did the same for Harolds between 1946 and 1958. The agency was responsible for Harolds’ covered wagon symbol and its  “Harolds Club or Bust” slogan. It also advertised for Harolds in newspapers and magazines and on radio and TV.

“They did a good job,” Harold Smith, Sr., wrote of the Wilson agency in I Want to Quit Winners.

Harrah’s also put up billboards along the highways throughout the U.S.’ western states and advertised in the same media outlets that Harolds Club did.

Because the casino names, “Harolds” and “Harrah’s,” were similar, each starting with an “H” and containing seven letters, people often mistook one for the other.

“The more advertising Harolds did, the more people noticed Harrah’s,” Mandel noted.

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* Bill Harrah took his company, Harrah’s Entertainment Inc., public in 1971.

** The number of Harolds roadside signs rose over time to about 2,000 and appeared throughout much of the world.

Sources

Joseph “Doc” Stacher (born Gdale Oistaczer, 1902-1977) was a “a genial, shrewd, witty gent” who could be “homicidally tough,” wrote “Voice of Broadway” columnist Jack O’Brian (Monroe News-Star, March 17, 1977). Closely aligned with fellow Jewish Mobsters, Meyer Lansky and Abner “Longie” Zwillman, this immigrant had “galvanic” power and extreme wealth.

Here are some facts about Stacher that provide insight into the man and his life in organized crime.

1) Stacher was involved in various gambling businesses in North and South America, from slot machine distribution and bookmaking to casino ownership and management.

2) Throughout the years Stacher owned various pieces of real estate and commercial enterprises. His many assets included two homes, one in Beverly Hills, California and the other in Orange, New Jersey; nightclubs in California; hotel-casinos in Las Vegas, Nevada and New York (oftentimes, as a silent partner); and assorted other businesses. He even owned a hidden stake in Columbia Pictures. With Zwillman, Stacher owned Runyon Sales Co., which manufactured and distributed automatic coin-operated machines.

“[Stacher] was worth many millions (some experts’ estimates say he still can put his canny hands on upwards of $100 million at any given, or taken, moment,” wrote O’Brian (Monroe News-Star, 1971).

3) Between ages 22 and 26, while an active member of the Bugs and Meyer Mob during the 1920s, Stacher racked up a slew of arrests and charges:

1924, November 26:     breaking, entering and larceny
1926, April 21:               assault and battery
1926, August 18:           assault and battery
1927, June 7:                atrocious assault and battery
1927, July 11:                atrocious assault and battery
1927, August 15:           robbery
1927, December 4:       interfering with an officer guarding a still for federal authorities
1927, December 9:       atrocious assault and battery
1928, May 29:               an “open charge,” which later was dismissed

4) At Lansky’s request, Stacher organized a 1931 meeting, at the Franconia Hotel, of all of the top New York-area Jewish mobsters. They decided, at the conference, to join forces with the U.S.-based Italian Mafia. Charles “Lucky” Luciano, representing the Italian Mafioso, agreed, and the National Crime Syndicate was formed.

5) Stacher first got in tax trouble in 1952, when the Internal Revenue Bureau (IRB) claimed he owed $340,000 (about $3.6 million today) in unpaid taxes for the nine years between 1933 and 1941. After the IRB issued liens against him, Stacher paid the amount in full.

6) In the same year, a federal grand jury in New York indicted Stacher on charges of illegal gambling and conspiracy in connection with the Arrowhead Inn (which he’d owned with Lansky during the 1920s). After successfully fighting extradition from Nevada for a year, Stacher eventually returned to The Empire State in 1953 and pleaded guilty to 20 charges. He was fined $10,000 ($104,000 today) and given a one-year suspended jail sentence.

7) The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) revoked Stacher’s citizenship in 1956 and sought to deport him. This was because he hadn’t not disclosed his criminal record on his citizenship application 26 years earlier. The INS could not return Stacher to his homeland (what now is Poland), however, because federal law forbade deportations to Communist countries.

8) Stacher pleaded guilty, in 1964, to two counts of evading payment of federal taxes. He was fined $10,000 and given the choice of going to prison or leaving the country. He opted for the latter and sought refuge in Israel. Its Law of Return, passed in 1950, granted every Jew the right to immigrate there and become an Israeli citizen.

9) A rabbi/member of the Knesset, or Israeli parliament, defrauded Stacher. Worried that Israel would refuse him citizenship, Stacher asked friend Frank Sinatra to seek help from this politician who owed the crooner a favor. Also, Stacher donated to the same man $100,000 ($897,000 today) to be used for charitable purposes. The rabbi/Knesset member, though, used the money to build the Central Hotel in Jerusalem.

“Outraged at being ripped off, Stacher sued in a court case that drew headlines and laughs throughout the country,” reported Mafia Stories. “Israelis were amused that such a giant figure in American crime could be so taken by a meek-looking rabbi.”

Eventually, Stacher recouped the money.

10) Stacher passed away in a Munich, West Germany, hotel room on February 28, 1977, reportedly from a heart attack, and his body was transported back to Israel. There, only eight people, all men, attended his funeral. He was buried secretly and the name on his grave was changed to conceal his interment site.

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Sources

The Louvre and Oberon Saloons in Reno, Nevada

1900-1906

A snapshot of six early years of one popular gambling-saloon in Reno, Nevada spotlights some of the problems these establishments routinely faced: on-site crime, financial troubles, crooked games and changes in both owners and gambling operators.

Though the Louvre debuted in May 1897* at 22 E. Commercial Row in the then-called Marshall Building, it wasn’t until 1900 that any gambling associated with the enterprise was mentioned in the local newspapers. All earlier Louvre reports touted its unique beer offerings, fine cigars, music and lunches, but this new news brief was that “two new games are running there.” One was faro, the other one, unknown, perhaps craps.**

Thus, we begin our presentation of events then, just after the turn of the century, when the firm of Robinson & Matson owns the Louvre and remodels its interior.

1901

October: Burglars attempt to rob the Louvre’s safe, but it doesn’t go as planned. They successfully blow off the door with explosives but fail to penetrate the inner vault. They abort their plan.

1902

April: C.C. Cox, from Texas, acquires the Louvre for $6,500 (about $180,000 today).

December: Alex Aguayo assumes management of the Louvre’s gambling.

1903

Bookmaking becomes legal in Nevada.

January: Thomas Ward joins Aguayo in management.

February: For unknown reasons, Aguayo “retires” from the Louvre (Nevada State Journal, Feb. 23, 1903).

April: A.L. Mason & B.F. Bailey, of Red Bluff, California, purchases the Louvre for $7,000 ($196,000 today), gives it a front facelift and adds a second story for gambling, per Nevada law.***

June: While playing faro in the Louvre, a 59-year-old man, Frank Fusselman, dies from a heart attack.

September: Bailey retires, leaving Mason to run the Louvre on his own.

November: Bert and Grant Crumley take over running the gambling and upstairs bar.

December: Leading up to Christmas and then, New Year’s Day, the Louvre gives away a turkey to every patron who pays 10 cents to spin the Big Wheel.

1904

April: Charles Dreyer, proprietor of the adjoining Oberon gambling saloon, secures the top floor of the Louvre. (His plan is to combine it with the Oberon’s, creating one large space in which to offer gambling, but he never does).

1905

Slot machines now are legal in Nevada.

April: Dreyer purchases the Louvre’s building from Mrs. Marshall for $18,000 ($505,000 today). Mason remains the Louvre’s proprietor.

May: Charles Stout and Mart Johnson take over management of the Louvre. Stout has a stake in Reno’s Arlington Hotel. Johnson is the proprietor of The Ingleside roadhouse and former co-owner of the Palace Hotel, both in Reno.

June: The Louvre bank goes broke, and Stout and Johnson temporarily shut down the faro and craps. They restart them the next day, though, with a new, $20,000 bank roll.

September: Stout and Johnson again close the Louvre’s games, this time due to a dissolution of the duo’s partnership. Johnson bows out.

October: At the Louvre, a former Reno department store clerk, Joe Mitchell, cashes some checks, for which he has no money.

1906

March: C.J. Miller, who previously owned the International Hotel in Nevada’s Virginia City, joins Stout in managing the Louvre’s gambling.

“The change is of interest to Reno and Nevada sporting circles on account of the prominent part taken by the new owners in square games,” reported the Nevada State Journal (March 30, 1906).

This quote suggests someone was operating crooked games at the Louvre. It may have been Johnson, given the local newspaper described him once as “the ‘smooth’ man of the Louvre” and given he stepped down seemingly over a disagreement with Stout (Reno Evening Gazette, Aug. 11, 1905).

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* The Louvre ended its run in 1939 when it became the Martin Hotel Bar.

** In 1900, Nevada allowed some forms of gambling, only these games: faro; monte; lansquenet/rouge et noir; keno; fantan; 21; Diana; stud poker; red, white and blue; and banking games (ones in which there is a fund against which all players may bet). Per state law at the time, any and all commercial gambling had to be conducted in an establishment’s back room(s) so that passersby out front wouldn’t see, through the windows, the action inside. State legislators amended this statute in 1903 (see ***).

*** The new version of law required that gambling establishments in more populous Nevada counties (in which at least 2,000 votes had been cast in the previous general election) confine games of chance to their location’s second floor.

Sources

1903

“Accommodation for Johnny Ox,” a gambling-related headline in the Nevada State Journal, March 17, 1903, puzzled us. Curious (read: obsessive), we set out to decipher it.

The brief news item relayed two gambling saloons in Reno — the Louvre and the Oberon —planned to build an upper level onto their one-story building in which to offer games of chance, per the new law. Accordingly, gambling no longer could take place on the ground floor, even if it was in a back room. Rather, it had to be confined to the second floor.

Given that information, it seems reasonable to assume “Johnny Ox” was a personified reference to gambling. But from where did the name come? Who was Johnny Ox?

Answer In The Midwest

As far as could be determined, the name came from a true story out of Indianapolis, Indiana. There, a man named Johnny Ox had been arrested numerous times for being involved in running illegal gambling. Each time, he’d paid his fine and, apparently, had gone right back to taking part in the illicit operations.

At some point, someone realized there was no Johnny Ox listed in the city directory and, thus, must not have been the real name of the man. His true identity became a brief mystery among the officers.

Once they figured it out, The Indianapolis News reported it. It turns out Johnny Ox was the alias of a well-known gambler in the area named T. Thompson.

“His business is to look after the kitty in the various poker games with which he has been associated for years,” the newspaper reported (Nov. 19, 1903).

That year Thompson began working for the syndicate that owned, controlled and operated nearly all of the gambling in Indianapolis. Two partners, Fred Heier and Jack Shea, were behind the group, offering poker, high-limit poker, craps and roulette at various locations in the city. Previously, Thompson had worked for William “Bill” Kissel, a small-time operator who ran a single poker game in Indianapolis.

A New Question Arises

What we of It Really Happened! can’t figure out is this:

How did a Reno newspaperman know the Johnny Ox story such that he alluded to it in the March headline when the first published reference to Ox in Indianapolis didn’t happen until eight months later, in November?

Our search of two databases of historical newspapers didn’t turn up any other Johnny Ox references going back to 1895, but that’s not to say one didn’t exist, somewhere.

Implausible Alternate Theory

Research also revealed that “Johnny Ox” and “Johnny Bull” interchangeably had represented the Saxon people, as they’d been enslaved and “held under the yoke” of the Normans (Oregon City Courier, July 16, 1914). The symbol grew, however, to represent English people as a whole.

Later, the two Johnnys morphed into John Bull, a symbol of the United Kingdom, much like Uncle Sam is to the U.S.

We try substituting “the Brits” or “the U.K.” for “Johnny Ox” in “Accommodation for Johnny Ox.” In this new context, the headline doesn’t make sense (unless we’re missing something), so we discredit this hypothesis.

Ultimately, we return to our Indianapolis gambler theory.

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Can you add any information? We’d love to learn what you know.

Sources

When police arrived at the alley behind the Carlton Bar in Reno just after midnight on May 16, 1946, they found an unconscious man lying on the ground, covered in blood. An American Legion ambulance rushed him to Washoe General Hospital, where a medical team worked to save his life. Their efforts unsuccessful, though, and the physician there pronounced Joseph Vaughn Spratt dead at 1:15 a.m.

Grave Injuries

Spratt, in his early 30s, a World War II veteran and pharmacy student in Denver, Colorado, was in the “Biggest Little City” with a handful of schoolmates to take the Nevada Board of Pharmacy exam. With the test behind them, the group went to the Carlton Bar that fateful night, for music, drinks and gambling before returning home. (The saloon offered 21, craps, roulette, poker and slots.)

All of the students but Spratt eventually left the bar. One of them, Roy Spencer, who exited out the back, was struck immediately after, in the dark alley.

One or more of the establishment’s personnel tossed Spratt out of the rear door into the same unlit area. Somehow, he wound up with a 5-inch-long skull fracture that caused a subdural hemorrhage. He also suffered bruising on the back and one side of his skull and three facial cuts, on his chin, above his eye and on his nose.

The events leading up to him dying on the pavement differed, depending on who relayed them.

Spratt

Someone Must Pay

The police arrested the Carlton Bar’s co-owner, Sam Delich, and its bartender, Guido “Gene” DiIullo. (The other two proprietors were Sam’s brother George Delich and Franz Gersich). Sam Delich and DiIullo were charged with voluntary manslaughter.

Their trials didn’t take place until November of that year. In the interim, the Carlton Bar owners sold their business for $20,000 (about $284,000 today) to Stan Hanson, in June.

Manslaughter V. Self-Defense

At the joint trial of DiIullo and Delich, the prosecution argued that the two were responsible for killing Spratt. They’d beaten him when evicting him from the bar, had tossed him out the back door and had left him for dead in the alley. One prosecution witness, Colonel William Steer, testified Spratt had been unconscious inside the Carlton bar after being struck several times by either DiIullo and/or Delich and, therefore, couldn’t have advanced toward DiIullo, a weapon in his hand, outside.

The defense contended that only DiIullo had hit Spratt, twice, and had done so in self-defense because Spratt had pulled a nail file or other sharp object on him when the duo had escorted him out of the bar. The defense also asserted that it’d been his head hitting the ground that had resulted in Spratt’s

demise. Nevada’s governor at the time Vail Pittman testified to the good reputation of Delich and DiIullo.

The jury acquitted Delich of manslaughter, but was hung, 10 to 1, regarding a verdict for DiIullo.

Dilullo As Defendant Again

In March of the next year, 1947, the district attorney’s office tried DiIullo a second time. He again took the stand and recalled his version of the events.

“The three-day trial was featured by conflicting testimony regarding how and when the fatal blow was struck,” reported the Reno Evening Gazette (March 21, 1947).

After deliberating 11 hours, the jurors returned a not guilty verdict.

No one but Spratt paid, after all.

Time and time again, in these fatal historical incidents, the perpetrators were acquitted on the grounds of self-defense, and one has to wonder why. What do you think? Should DiIullo and/or Delich have gotten off like they did or not? Why?

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Sources

In 1931, the year Nevada legalized gambling on a wide open basis, the state’s major metropolis Reno saw the introduction of the game of chance jokereno and the namesake place offering it commercially, the Jokereno Club. However, Lady Luck didn’t smile on either.

Giving It A Go

Two East Coast men opened the Jokereno Club on Dec. 19 to offer a game of the same name developed by one of them, William A. De Vellier of New York. Jokereno was a card game much like bingo but said “to contain many new and surprising devices and to give the player more action than any game resembling it,” reported the Nevada State Journal (Dec. 19, 1931).

De Vellier and his partner W.F. Bolte of New Jersey comprised the Nevada Holding & Trust Company, sponsors of National Jokereno Inc. William J. Hackett, allegedly from Massachusetts, was the club’s manager.

Holds Promise

An advertisement, published in the NSJ, announced the Jokereno Club’s debut that very night. It indicated its subsequent hours were to be from 1 p.m. until all patrons left, every day. Also daily, prizes were to be awarded for high score, low score and attendance.

The ad contained a brief letter that read:

To the Residents of Reno,

The Jokereno Club, just completed at 130 N. Center Street,* has been designed and constructed with the thought uppermost in the minds of the officers and directors of this corporation that, when finished, this club should be an everlasting source of civic pride to the citizens of the community.

We have endeavored to combine comfort with beauty and we shall let you be the judge of whether or not we have succeeded.

The management will appreciate and at all times co-operate with anyone offering suggestions as to how we may improve our club or game.

Nevada Holding and Trust Company

Indeed, the club was “one of the most attractive in the state,” the NSJ reported, with details having been paid to all appointments, from floor to ceiling. For one, the panels on the light fixtures bore the word “Jokereno.” The color scheme was based on the Moroccan upholstery fabric that covered the chairs, and the drapes, rugs and lights were in hues that blended nicely with it.

“Among the interesting features of the club is the original brass cashier’s grill from the Comstock Bank of Virginia City,” noted the NSJ.

The Jokereno Club owners stuck to their promise of heeding feedback. A week after opening, they closed for a day to install additional equipment in response to an open letter suggesting some game improvements.

On opening night, special guest Reno Mayor E.E. Roberts kicked off the first jokereno game.

Why Do It?

The Jokereno Club had been open for about two weeks when a strange incident occurred. Southern Pacific Company was tasked with delivering 98 swivel chairs and their iron bases to the man who’d ordered them from a Los Angeles store, a Mo Dorman, but mistakenly went to the gambling club’s address instead of Dorman’s. Someone at Jokereno, likely either De Vellier or Hackett, deceitfully claimed they’d bought the merchandise, so Southern Pacific left it there.

When Dorman didn’t get his property, he repeatedly asked that it be returned to him, but failed to get it back.

Thus, Southern Pacific sued both National Jokereno Inc. and Nevada Holding & Trust, seeking either return of the chairs or their value, $617 (about $12,300 today), along with $200 ($4,000) in damages and costs.

A few days later, the parties resolved the suit out of court. (Presumably, Jokereno gave up the merchandise.)

Last Breaths

By June, the Jokereno Club owed money to employees and equipment vendors. The creditors sued the owners, and the business was attached as a result. (Attachment is a preliminary property seizure done when it’s expected the plaintiff(s) will prevail in their claim the defendant owes them money.)

In another indicator of the club being in financial trouble, De Vellier was charged in July with passing a bad $25 ($500) check at the local Monarch Café & Lunch Counter.

On Aug. 24, some of the Jokereno Club’s seats, tables and equipment were moved to another gambling house. The remaining equipment was seized and used to pay the club’s debts.

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Have you played jokereno? If you have, what do you think of it?

* After the Jokereno Club, the location featured the Dog House gambling-nightclub.

Sources