1940

After some angry husbands in Los Angeles, California complained their wives were gambling away the grocery money, two vice squad officers raided the Monday night birthday party of Ann Dicker, a 73-year-old great-grandmother, at which she and seven guests were playing poker. (The policemen had climbed up the drainpipe to stealthily reach her second-floor apartment.)

The surprise intrusion yielded a pot of $2.70, “as it was a five-cent limit affair.”

The ladies were arrested, taken to jail and fined $10 apiece. (It was Dicker’s third arrest and fine for illegal gambling.)

—————————

“A disgusting travesty on justice,” the police commissioner said of the arrests (Reno Evening Gazette, Aug. 15, 1940).

1934

When police raided an illegal gambling den in Kingston, Washington, one of the players present, Raymond Johnson, swallowed the dice. In court after his arrest, the judge gave him 30 days to “digest” and produce the dotted cubes.

Unfortunately, it’s unknown how everything turned out in this case.

Photo from freeimages.com: by Katinka Kober

Pasadena, California in 1945

1948

When Pasadena, California vice squad officers got a tip that chef/restaurant owner Paul B. Weston, 56, was sidelining as an illegal bookie, they raided his home and found gambling paraphernalia — where else? — under the stove.

And, sealing Weston’s fate, while the police were in his residence, they fielded 10 phone calls to Weston in which the callers, unaware they were speaking to the law, asked for betting information. Weston was arrested.

Photo from Wikimedia Commons/The National Archives