1950-1979

The Harolds Club casino, in Reno, Nevada, held an annual winter holiday party for employees at its Harolds Trapshooting Club in the neighboring town of Sparks, on the Pyramid Highway.

The fêtes, which featured dancing, live music, food and alcohol, lasted 24 hours, so every worker could attend.

Photo from Wikimedia Commons: by AnelGTR

1957-1962

Perhaps it was a bird-brained idea; perhaps not.

In 1957, Dick Graves, the owner of the Nugget, in Sparks, Nevada, commissioned a handcrafted, solid gold rooster for display in one of his hotel-casino restaurants, the Golden Rooster Chicken House, then under construction.

The final product was 9 inches tall and embodied about $40,000 worth of 18-carat gold, a $339,000 value today.

After a year or so of the gold bird drawing attention in its burglar-proof coop, Graves found himself in legal trouble … over the fowl.

United States law prohibited citizens from owning more than 50 ounces of any precious metal unless it was a piece of art. Graves’ rooster weighed a whopping 255 ounces. The government, deeming the bird an advertising gimmick rather than an objet d’art, seized it in 1960 and sued its owner for violating the 1934 Gold Reserve Act.

Up To A Jury

During a trial two years later, jurors were tasked with deciding whether Graves had been using the rooster for artistic purposes or not. Three experts gave divergent testimony on that issue.

Graves’ attorney Paul Laxalt said he was “an innocent businessman caught in the web of complicated and confused government” (Reno Evening Gazette, March 29, 1962). “The holding of Dick Graves of this little rooster is not going to upset the international gold balance. It would be a terrific shame to have the rooster melted down.”

After struggling to decide, the jury ultimately ruled in Graves’ favor, concluding his rooster was exempt from the federal rule. The government returned the precious metal poultry to Graves, who promptly returned it to its casino roost. The prosecutor, though, filed an appeal.  

One and a half months later, the U.S. government abandoned the case for good. As for the rooster, it paraded its shiny plumage at the Nugget until July 2014, when it was sold for $234,000 at the Coeur d’Alene Art Auction. 

Sources

1970-1971

In the summer of 1970, a package and suitcase found in a Sparks Nugget Motor Lodge room in Northern Nevada with a note affixed saying to please deliver the items to Nugget owner John Ascuaga’s office. A $20 bill was attached as a tip.

A few days later, Nugget manager Gil Padroli opened the package. It contained a bomb — an explosives-filled cardboard tube attached to a timing mechanism and battery! (Police discovered, though, it wasn’t wired to detonate.)

A handwritten message with the device demanded a total of $1 million from the Sparks Nugget, Harolds Club and Harrah’s Club. The casinos were to exactly follow two outlined steps to deliver the cash. First, they were to mail $100,000 to two different California post office boxes. The money had to arrive within four days (Wednesday, June 24). If it wasn’t, wired bombs like the one in the package would be planted in their casinos.

Padroli, however, hadn’t even opened the package left for Ascuaga until the day after the deadline. But no bombs exploded or were found. Police, however, sent a portion of the $200,000 to the mailboxes and posted surveillance teams at each. Nothing happened.

A similar extortion case would take place in Southern Nevada two years later, in which a different perpetrator demanded 21 Las Vegas hotel-casinos pay a total of $2 million or get bombed one by one.

Instructions, Part Two

The second step was for the casinos to place another $200,000 in the trunk of a car parked on a rural street south of downtown Reno. If this wasn’t done by 10 p.m. Tuesday, June 30, then 84 bombs in various places would detonate. In the trunk would be the location of 40 explosive devices along with final directions for where to leave the remaining $600,000. At that site, a note would indicate where the remaining 44 bombs were placed.

That day, about 60 law enforcement officers, many disguised as campers and hunters, staked out the area around the drop site. But by 11:20 p.m., when the police chief aborted the operation, no one had shown to retrieve the money.

Pursuit Of Suspects

Having worked the case for days, the police identified some suspects:

• One was arrested on an unrelated charge in California soon after the package had been left at the Nugget.

• Police booked the primary suspect, a second California man, Eugene Raymond Dill, a 32-year-old contractor, and charged him with extortion.

• Three months later, Frank Richard Gunn, a friend of Dill, also was apprehended in Seattle and charged with being an accessory after the fact.

The district attorney’s office, however, only pursued charges against Dill, who pleaded innocent, and the case went to trial in March 1971. A latent fingerprint examiner testified that Dill’s fingerprints were found on the sample bomb. When the prosecution called Gunn as a witness, he pleaded the Fifth Amendment. The judge, however, threatened him with contempt of court charges, forcing him to testify, during which he denied any knowledge of the crime.

After four hours of deliberation, the jury decided Dill was innocent.

A month later, Frank Gunn billed the Washoe County Board of Commissioners for $45,000 in damages as compensation for a false arrest in the bomb extortion case. Commissioners denied the request.

Sources

1935

Although it was a Ponzi scheme, its lure of big money was too strong for many Renoites to resist. One chain letter business, the Opportunity Club, popped up overnight as part of the nationwide craze in 1935. In five days, it garnered more than 5,000 participants (about one-quarter of Reno, Nevada’s population then).

“The business has been well organized and every section of the town has been invaded with ‘investors’ seeking to attract their friends into a ‘sure thing,’” reported the Nevada State Journal (May 15, 1935).

How did it work? A customer bought two copies of a letter from a broker for $5 (an $86 value today). He then sold them to two people who signed for and received two more letters from the broker. Each of those two sold their letters to two other individuals and so on. Each letter contained six names. The payout for the top name getting 64 people to buy each of his two letters was $256 ($4,400 today). That amount was $320 minus the per-letter 20 percent broker fee of $32. One name moving to the top of a letter would put $12,288 in the company’s coffers.

While it sounded enticing for the public, it wasn’t. The deal depended on an individual getting 128 (64 per letter) people to pay the $5 apiece at the broker’s office. That would move him up one spot on each letter. The payout also required 128 people for each of the other five names on the letter, or 640 individuals, also paid $5 apiece in person Further, an individual couldn’t get the reward until he advanced to the top of two letters.

The Weak Link

When District Attorney Ernest Brown learned of the racket, he demanded the Opportunity Club cease operations immediately and threatened its manager, Ralph C. Perrin, and other principals with prosecution if they didn’t comply. Brown declared such a business fraudulent because it involved an element of chance and, therefore, violated Nevada’s anti-lottery law, in which it defined:

“A lottery is any scheme for the disposal or distribution of property, by chance, among persons who have paid or promised to pay any valuable consideration for the chance of obtaining such property, or a portion of it, or for any share or any interest in such property upon any agreement, understanding, or expectation that it is to be distributed or disposed of by lot or chance, whether called a lottery, raffle or gift enterprise, or by whatever name may be known.”

The following morning, Perrin applied for a gambling license. That night, the sheriff noted a sign on the club’s door, “Operating with Permission of the Sheriff” — a false statement. On the D.A.’s orders, the sheriff closed the club and arrested Perrin and three others. All were arraigned and released on their own recognizance pending an upcoming jury trial.

A second chain letter brokerage — the Golden Chain Letter Club — was about to open but given the heat on Opportunity never did.

Perrin asserted the chain letter business:

• Wasn’t a lottery as chance didn’t play a role
• Didn’t have the chance of any investor losing (ha!)
• Didn’t involve a drawing

If the business were a lottery, they argued, then so were other types of currently licensed games, such as roulette, keno, 21, horse racing, etc.

They gathered petition signatures of people who believed similarly. Perrin claimed to have received 1,500 signatures from less than one day’s effort. In the meantime, many who’d bought letters asked the D.A.’s office what would happen. Would officials ensure the investors got what the broker promised them? Would they lose their money? At that point, it totaled about $25,000, which Perrin said was being held for investors in a trust.

Taken To A Jury

Five days after Brown ordered the club closed and with chain letter activities finally halted, the Opportunity Club trial began. Two days in, Justice of the Peace James Sullivan declared Brown’s complaint against the defendants defective, thus ending the case. Brown said he’d issue a new complaint against the men only if they restarted the business. Opportunity’s lawyer said the men intended to operate if the city granted them a gambling license — a long shot.

Three days later, the city council, also believing the chain letter gig was a lottery, denied Perrin a gambling license. He then tried to obtain one from the neighboring city and his hometown, Sparks. It, too, for the same reason, refused to grant it. That was the final break in Northern Nevada’s chain of chain letter enterprises. It’s unknown what happened to the money investors already had paid to Opportunity.

Photo from pond5.com: “JOIN Chain Links” by 5@iqoncep

Sources

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).

Sources

1962-1999

You’ve likely heard of Dumbo, Horton and Babar, but what about Bertha?

Real, unlike the others, Bertha is an elephant renowned for having performed in shows at the Nugget hotel-casino, in Sparks, Nevada, for 38 years!

Former Nugget owner, John Ascuaga, bought Bertha in 1962 for $8,000 (that’s $63,000 in today’s dollars) from a Wisconsin circus museum and, soon after, had the 17 year old appear on stage for opening night of the showroom Circus Room and regularly thereafter.

“Bertha is really super. She’s so gentle and very intelligent. We do a trick where she lays on top of me. She is so careful that I’m not afraid at all,” said Diane Gustin, who performed with her (Nevada State Journal, July 20, 1975). “She is one in a million. She has a fine temperament.”

This Asian star often performed with a stunning female and, over the years, with a younger elephant sidekick, first Tina, then Angel. Once, she carried to the stage Liberace who was bedecked in a $100,000 costume. She also did her act at local elementary schools.

In 1973, Ascuaga awarded Bertha with a 10-year pin and inclusion into the prestigious Nugget employee Hall of Fame; she celebrated by consuming an extra hay bale.

Bertha lived in a barn adjacent to the Nugget, a $75,000 facility equipped with water, electricity, heat and an outdoor exercise yard. Her trainers lived in an apartment above it.

Beauty Routine

This 9,800-pound pachyderm chowed down five times a day, mostly on hay, grain, oat mash, bread, lettuce and other vegetables.

Her beauty and hygiene regimen read like a spa menu. During the summers, peak performance season, Bertha’s trainer bathed her and exfoliated her skin (with fine sandpaper) daily to keep her soft and smelling good. He cut her hair every six to eight weeks with … a blowtorch.

He routinely trimmed her toenails and cuticles. In the winter, when she didn’t perform because the showroom was closed, she basked in a total body, pore-clearing oil treatment that remained on her skin for four weeks.

The entertainment icon retired in October 1999 and died a month later at age 48.

Sources

Southern Pacific Depot in Reno, Nevada

1931

When a Southern Pacific train stopped in Reno on a Friday in May at about 9:15 p.m., four passengers disembarked to squeeze in, before continuing on, a glance at gambling, which Nevada recently had legalized. The travelers left their luggage onboard. One woman, temporarily forgetting she had one with her, left her baby there, too (Nevada State Journal, May 23, 1931).

Sometime later, the group darted out of a casino with the mother shrieking, “My baby! My baby!” because the train had left!

The four implored two cab drivers to rush them to the next train stop in Sparks, which they did. The casino lookie-loos arrived in time for the mom to reunite with her little one and all to retrieve their bags.

The Big Bertha introduced in the 1960s wasn’t a circus lady or a German howitzer; it was a made-in-Nevada slot machine that became iconic.

Named for its size, the three-reel device stood 5 to 6 feet tall and weighed about 700 pounds. Along with its ample dimensions, the potential $1,000 (about $7,800 today) jackpot attracted players. One pull of the jumbo lever cost $1 ($8 today).

“[The oversized slots] have a carnival quality. They draw people,” William “Si” Redd told the Nevada State Journal (July 8, 1973).

The chances of hitting a jackpot on Big Bertha were terrible, estimated at 1 in 15 billion. But some players did win.

Beating The Odds

Here are five such cases reported by various newspapers, from oldest to most recent:

1) $26,566 (1975, January): James and Brenda Harrington, San Pablo, California residents, got married on December 31, 1974. The following day, at the Eldorado Hotel Casino in Reno, Nevada, Brenda put $1 in a Big Bertha offering a progressive jackpot. Four red sevens came up, and the couple won $26,566.

2) $180,886 (1977, April): Rodolfo Jose Salak of San Francisco, California spent $60, in increments of $5, on the double progressive Big Bertha slot machine at Harolds Club in Reno. Four Harolds Club or Bust covered wagons filled the row, and he hit the $180,886 jackpot.

3) $10,000 (1977, December): Raymond and Karen Weber of Sparks, Nevada were leaving the Plantation Casino (now Rail City Casino) in their hometown when Raymond deposited three silver dollars into Big Bertha. Four sevens appeared; the payout was $10,000.

4) $314,741 (1980, August): Clark Petrochilos and Bill Ragland from Fresno, California took turns playing Big Bertha with $5 tokens, also at Reno’s Harolds Club. After five hours and $5,000, they hit four wagons and $314,741.

5) $473,645 (1981, August): Norman and Barbara Mabie “decided to play the slot machine Wednesday after rejecting two other alternatives for the day, shopping and sunbathing,” reported the Orange County Register (Aug. 6, 1981). At Harolds Club in Reno, Barbara inserted the dollars into Big Bertha, and Norman pulled the handle. Eighty-four dollars later, the two won $473,645.

Redd: Bigger Is Better

By 1972, more than 85 Big Berthas were in operation throughout The Silver State. These devices originally were designed and made by Currency Gaming Devices Inc. (later Bally Distributing Company), the enterprise of Dick Graves (of Sparks Nugget Lodge fame). Subsequently, the company SIRCOMA, which stood for Si Redd’s Coin Machines, Redd being the owner, spent $100,000 to $150,000 (roughly $586,000 to $880,000 today) on developing an even larger Big Bertha, which he dubbed Super Bertha.

Super Bertha

At 6 feet tall, 10 feet wide and 5 feet deep, Super Bertha was recorded in the 1973 Guinness World Records book as the largest slot machine. It contained eight reels and a 5-horsepower motor.

This device required $10 ($55) minimum for the potential $1 million ($5.5 million today) jackpot. However, it accommodated bets as low as $1 for lower payoffs. Odds for winning the million were an estimated 1 in 25 billion.

Super Bertha first appeared in 1973 in Caesars Palace and the Four Queens Casino — both in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Sources