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

1949-1950

During the Prohibition years in California, 1919 to 1934, San Mateo County was a hotbed for illegal vices — gambling, prostitution and drinking. Even a Mobster, Hillsborough-based Sam Termini, said the county was the state’s most corrupt one in 1930. This was under the watch of James J. McGrath, the sheriff for 24 years starting in 1926.

McGrath

“There were numerous wide-open gambling joints operating in county territory under his jurisdiction; slot machines were operating in these establishments as well as in other public places; and bookmaking enterprises flourished throughout the county,” reported California’s Final Report of The Special Crime Study Commission on Organized Crime (1953).

Nothing changed after Prohibition ended except bootleggers moved into gambling.

“After years of violating liquor laws, the general attitude toward crime had softened. … Bookies prospered through illegal off-track betting and gambling dens,” wrote Carmen J. Blair in “The Most Corrupt County.”

Big, Big Business

Fast forward to 1949, and McGrath still was in office.* In his county, in the unincorporated community of Colma,** “Red” MacDonald (or McDonald, the spelling and true first name couldn’t be verified) launched a bookmaking enterprise, his area of expertise. The operation primarily was telephone based and a layoff spot for other U.S. bookies. It also served, though, as a West Coast clearinghouse for betting monies coming from and going to other areas of the country.

The business reportedly handled about $100,000 to $200,000 a day (about $1.2 to $2.3 million today).

The California organized crime commission dubbed it the Olmo Group because MacDonald ran it on George Olmo’s ranch and horse stables property, on Washington Street in Broadmoor Village.

“[The book] had operated virtually unmolested during nearly two years during this entire time with the connivance of certain law enforcement officials,” according to the Final Report, its findings based on the testimony of subpoenaed witnesses at hearings.

In Tight With Lawmen

MacDonald paid about $1,000 ($12,000 today) weekly in the form of bribes, most of them “related in one way or another to Sheriff James J. McGrath,” the Final Report noted.

McGrath ordered the occasional raid on the Olmo land, but no arrests were made. At most, officers removed telephones.  

Various relationships between lawmen and various Olmo associates were blatant conflicts of interest. For instance, all of the horse riding members of the San Mateo Sheriff’s Office kept their horses at the Olmo stables.

Also, the deputy sheriff, Milton Minehan, who went on all raids, was related by marriage to John O’Neil, a feed and grain dealer who partly financed the Olmo bookmaking endeavor and personally handled bets. O’Neil and McGrath were good friends.

Further, when the Olmo group’s bagman, collector and enforcer, Richard “Big Dick” Charles Trabert, transported large sums of money from or to the ranch, certain San Francisco Police Department officers escorted him.

The Other Principals

In addition to MacDonald, O’Neil and Trabert, the following men helped bankroll the Olmo bookmaking business:

Emilio “Gombo” Georgetti: an alleged member of the San Francisco-based Lanza Crime Family and the boss of all San Mateo County gambling activities for many years, including slot machine distribution. He ran several gambling establishments there, too, including the Willow Tree in Colma. Georgetti and Sheriff McGrath were close friends.

Ralph Cody: a longtime bookmaker involved in football and basketball pools.

Abe Fox: a bookmaker.

Cody and Fox had been arrested in 1946 in a raid on a different bookmaking business in San Francisco.

Reportedly, Arthur “Artie” H. Samish had financed Cody and Fox in the Olmo operation. Samish was a California lobbyist, representing the interests of race track owners, liquor and brewing producers, movie studios, attorneys and insurers.

John “Red” Robert Gregory: a race horse owner and trainer and a former associate of Southern California’s Guarantee Finance Company bookmaking syndicate.

Frank “Porky” X. Flynn: a lobbying associate of Samish

Circumstances Change

The Olmo group closed their enterprise in Colma in June 1950 and planned to move it to San Francisco as it is in a different county. Two major factors precipitated this: the odds were long that McGrath would get re-elected for a fifth term in the upcoming election, and the book’s leader MacDonald passed away earlier in the year. 

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* McGrath’s 24-year tenure as San Mateo County sheriff was the longest ever in the history of the office.

** Colma, known today as the City of Souls, always has been home to more dead bodies than living people. Due to cemetery overcrowding in San Francisco in the early 20th century, 150,000-plus corpses were transferred to and buried in Colma, which, since, was and still today is the burial ground for The City by The Bay.

Photo of money-filled suitcase from pond5.com: by maxxyustas

Sources

Among these enterprises lining Commercial Row circa 1906, the Louvre sits to the immediate left of the Oberon. The Louvre is notable for its distinctive Gothic arch, with which A.L. Mason and B.F. Bailey replaced the iron pillars in 1903, when they assumed ownership of the saloon.

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 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.

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

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Sources

Martin Mooney

1935-1936

In about mid-December 1935, New York newspaper reporter Martin Mooney (1896-1967) faced serving his jail sentence during the upcoming holidays. His offense? Contempt of court for refusing to reveal to the local grand jurors the sources he’d used in an exposé on illegal gambling in New York City.

“It won’t be so bad if I have to go to jail before Christmas,” Mooney said. “Just think of all the presents I won’t have to buy or all the parties I won’t have to go to then.”

Journalist Stands Firm

One of the unlawful activities the grand jury had been investigating earlier that year was operating numbers, or policy,* which violated New York state’s gambling and lottery laws.

Mooney, a reporter for the New York American,** a William Randolph Hearst-owned morning newspaper, wrote a series of articles alleging that despite the grand jury’s efforts to curb the local numbers racket, it continued to prosper in the city. In other words, the citizen group’s work was ineffective. To make the case, Mooney used confidential sources, men continuing to run these games, quoting them and describing their enterprises.  

Consequently, the grand jury began looking into the validity of the claims in Mooney’s exposé. The jurors called the reporter as a witness during a related hearing, and asked him to provide the names and addresses of the people and places he’d mentioned in his pieces. The journalist refused, noting his sources were confidential and privileged.

Ethically, that was true. Legally, though, it wasn’t. The state of New York didn’t have any law on the books that protected reporters from having to reveal their sources.

The Bad Guy

Not surprisingly, in May, Mooney was sentenced to 30 days in jail and fined $250 (about $5,000 today) for contempt of court.

“The only reason I am being thrown into jail is because I refuse to head a committee of my colleagues to supply Information to the grand jury,” the reporter told the court. “Had I accepted that offer, I know very well I would have been purged” (Syracuse Herald, May 17, 1935).

The only conviction to come out of the grand jury’s inquiry into the numbers racket was of Mooney, the messenger instead of any of the perpetrators.

“I feel it is a great injustice that an innocent newspaper man should be the great prize corralled by this great grand jury in its lone investigation,” Mooney said. “There is no court in this land which holds me in the contempt in which I hold this grand jury.”

Fighting for Change

Mooney and his attorney James D.C. Murray took the case all the way up to New York’s highest court, the Court of Appeals. Before each legal body along the way, Murray argued the privilege afforded physician and patient, attorney and client, should be given to reporters and their confidential sources. Every court’s ruling was the same: Mooney had to cough up his sources or carry out his punishment.

“The decision was based on the law of the state, and that law today prohibits newspapers from protecting sources of confidential information,” noted a Syracuse Herald op-ed piece (Feb. 1, 1936).

Further, the Court of Appeals noted that a decision to enact a shield law for reporters was under the purview of lawmakers not the courts. (Coincidentally, such a bill, calling for reporter immunity, had been introduced in the New York State Legislature in its previous session but had been killed in committee.)

The Epilogue

Following the New York Court of Appeals‘ ruling in January 1936, Mooney served his sentence in the Queens County Jail. (Presumably, he paid the fine as well.)

The year before, at about age 39, he abandoned journalism and pursued screenwriting, in which he would be successful, too. He would base many of his screenplays on the underworld about which he’d written as a reporter. The movies for which he’s best known, according to IMDB, are “Mr. Celebrity” (1941), “Men of San Quentin” (1942), “Silent Witness” (1943), “The Great Mike” (1944) and “Detour” (1945).

As for affording journalists the right to keep their confidential sources, well, confidential, New York wouldn’t enact a law in this regard until 1970, and when it did, the privilege only would apply to certain journalists, ones with staff positions at newspapers, magazines and TV stations.

Mooney’s story, however, spurred quicker action in other states: California (1935), Kentucky (1936), Arkansas (1936), Arizona (1937), Pennsylvania (1937), Indiana (1941), Ohio (1941) and Montana (1943).

To date, the U.S. doesn’t have a federal shield law.

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* Numbers, or policy, of the past was lottery-type games in which players bet on a number they predicted would appear in a specific source on a specific future day and time. Originally, operators generated the winning numbers through lottery drawings but that evolved into them using baseball scores, parimutuel totals, cattle receipts and other combinations of figures that routinely appeared in a local newspaper. Because players could wager nickels and dimes, even those who couldn’t afford even part of a lottery ticket could play numbers. Therefore, the game became prevalent in poor U.S. neighborhoods.

** The New York American was published between 1902 and 1937, when Hearst merged it with its afternoon newspaper, the New York Evening Journal, and the combined papers became the New York Journal-American. The Journal ceased publication in 1966.

Sources

1946-1947

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.

DiIullo 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

It opened in 1939 and for years was the world’s largest.

It was (and still is) in Argentina‘s Mar del Plata, the “smartest, most opulent, most ostentatious shore resort in South America,” as described by “Around the World” columnist Temple Manning in 1949 (The Courier-Express).

Its large, magnificent building showcased an eclectic architectural style.

It was owned and operated by the government.

Its nightly take was higher than at any other continental enterprise of its kind.

In the late 1950s, it could accommodate up to 20,000 people.

It was Casino Central.

Irene Kite

1937-1939

In 1937, an Alton, Illinois woman took on the local gambling-Mobsters and the political machine … with an axe.

Motivating Factors

In Irene Kite‘s county of Madison, gambling was illegal, yet law enforcement and local government allowed certain establishments offering games of chance to operate openly. Her husband Carl’s card club had been one of them until the powers that be, at the behest of the area’s crime syndicate, refused him permission to operate in April 1937 after 15 years in business. This left the Kites without an income.

The majority of approved gaming enterprises were ones run by Mobsters, and they sought to get all independently owned places closed down.

The syndicate heads in Madison County were: Harry Murdock, Harry Price, Paul Delaney and Cliff Phayer.

“With the exception of a few cities in Madison County, the syndicate had its grip everywhere — Granite City and Wood River being the chief places where the syndicate was barred. Alton, Edwardsville, East Alton, Venice, Madison, Collinsville and some of the smaller places were dominated in their politics, as well as their slot machine business, by one or the other of the divisions of gamblers who were plundering the people of the county,” reported the Alton Evening Telegraph (Nov. 2, 1938).

The article highlighted that the Mobsters’ slots were rigged to rarely pay out and when they did, amounts were small.

Her Killing Spree

On a Saturday afternoon in late December of the same year, Kite contacted a local newspaperman and informed him what she planned to do that night and why.

Later, she went from gambling club to gambling club in Alton, once inside apologized for the disruption and slayed as many syndicate-owned slot machines as she could. Familiar with the devices’ inner workings, she disabled each one with two targeted blows.

Kite maimed 14 slots in 7 bars before police arrested her.

Irene Kite, with axe, in action.

She did it “because that’s the only way I can get at those who allow one man to operate a gambling resort and won’t let the next man,” and she’d intended to embarrass the slot owners, she’d told the reporter (Alton Evening Telegraph, Dec. 20, 1937).

Kite emphasized she’d axe the slots again and again if she thought she had to.

“I’ve got a lot of axes — about a dozen of them — and I’m not going to quit until every slot is out of the city,” she said (Nevada State Journal, Feb. 15, 1938).Kite also had informed the newspaperman that in Alton numerous syndicate-operated gambling places already should’ve been closed but hadn’t been because no officer would serve the warrants. She’d estimated that about 14 of these warrants, all legitimate and signed by a judge, were on file; the reporter looked into the matter and confirmed the total to be 17.

Success and Fame

After spending a few hours in jail that Saturday night, Kite was released. No charges were brought against her for her destructive rampage.

What it did get her was results. Alton’s Chief of Police Paul Smith ordered that all gambling in the city be stopped. And it was … at least for the time being.

“It is true that the slot machines are now in storage,” the Alton Evening Telegraph reported (Nov. 2, 1938), but the gambling syndicate hope, only until after election (on Nov. 8) when the prediction is made, if everything goes right, they will be out and in full operation again.”

Kite also garnered widespread fame. People and groups — the Alton Ministerial Association and the League of Women Voters, for example — admired and supported her. Eventually, the notoriety led to her and her story being featured, in March 1939, in Actual Detective Stories of Women in Crime, a hard-boiled pulp publication.

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Sources

1931-1932

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

1894-Today

In his paintings depicting dogs as humans, Cassius “Kash” Marcellus Coolidge (1844-1934) brilliantly captured the nuances of poker playing and gambling. The dogs’ expressions are spot on and the details, comedic. Perhaps Coolidge himself had some experience in that world.

Along with Poker Game (above), here are the paintings, all oils on canvas, created between 1894 and 1910:

In A Bold Bluff, originally titled Judge St. Bernard Stands Pat on Nothing, it appears as if Judge St. Bernard has bluffed his way through the game with a weak hand and, with only one opponent left, all eyes are on Judge, eager to see his next move or his hand.

Waterloo continues the story, with Judge St. Bernard having won the game and the big pot, his fellow players shocked at his hand and how he’d bluffed them.

Looks Like Four of a Kind, also called A Friend in Need, shows a group of buddies playing poker at 1:10 a.m. Mr. Bulldog is about to cheat by slyly giving a card to his compatriot on his left. Mr. Dog on Mr. Bulldog’s right witnesses the pass. (Note how Mr. Collie has his legs crossed!)

In His Station and Four Aces, three dogs are playing poker while traveling on a train, and a few others, the attendant included, are watching. Mr. Dog seated on the left has a rare hand (four aces) but before he can play it, the train arrives at his stop, and he’s grumbling about it.

Pinched with Four Aces depicts a police raid on an in-progress, illegal poker game. Mr. Collie No. 1 starts to flee, knocking over his liquor glass and sending his chips flying in the process. Mr. Collie No. 2 looks angrily at the cops for the intrusion whereas the other players just seem surprised by it. Mr. Bulldog has four aces, but his hand will go to waste.

In Poker Sympathy, Mr. Bulldog hasn’t won anything all night and looks to be saying, “I freakin’ give up!” The other players express their sympathy except for Mr. Pitbull, who seems to be laughing at the repeat loser’s misfortune.

In Post Mortem, at about 1:23 a.m., three players are enjoying a snack while kibbitzing and discussing and analyzing the games just played that night.  

Sitting Up With a Friend shows a group of guys keeping their ailing pal company. Some are trying to entertain him, at least one other is playing cards with him, and a third and fourth are passing the time reading.

Stranger in Camp depicts a mining camp, in which two card-playing men are unhappy with an unknown dude who wandered over to join them. One seems to be sizing him up, the other looks to be yelling at him. Meanwhile, the newcomer looks a tad frightened.

Unwarranted Dissing of the Artist

The art community of Coolidge’s time didn’t give the New York-born any respect, as if they believed he and his works were inferior, products for the lower classes. Ironically, it’s those very elitists whom Coolidge seems to mock in his paintings of anthropomorphized dogs, wearing suits, ties and pricey accessories, smoking pipes and cigars, drinking expensive liquor and gambling away heaps of money.

Given that Coolidge’s images are still being reproduced and hold iconic status today, more than 100 years after their creation, and given two of the original paintings sold at auction in 2005 for $590,400 (about $829,000 today), Coolidge, god rest his soul, (deservedly) is having the last laugh. Not bad for someone without any formal training in the arts.

An older and a younger Cassius Marcellus Coolidge

Which one is your favorite image? 

1835

During Andrew Jackson’s U.S. presidency, anti-gambling sentiment began sweeping the Southern states. By 1835, it had hit Louisiana and was making its way up the Mississippi River. The fever peaked mid-year in Vicksburg, Mississippi when a band of vigilantes committed a criminal act that shocked the world.

Generally, the steps taken to eradicate gambling in a region included passing laws prohibiting the activity, ordering gamblers (operators and professional cheaters) to leave the jurisdiction and raiding and shutting down illegal operations. What happened in Vicksburg, however, was unprecedented and radical.

The Last Straw

Dissent toward the gamblers in the city burgeoned over a couple of days, starting on July 4 at a party held by the corps of Vicksburg Volunteers and attended by numerous residents. When, at the shindig, an officer attempted to quiet everyone for a toast, a gambler named Francis Cabler allegedly insulted him and then hit a guest. Cabler was shown the door.

After the festivities ended, many of these militia members as well as locals went to the city’s public square. Cabler showed up, too, and made a beeline for the group. Before he reached it, however, two volunteers arrested him and found a loaded gun, knife and dagger on his person.

The mob tied him to a tree, tarred and feathered him and ordered him to leave Vicksburg within 48 hours.

Get Out or Else

That night, numerous Vicksburg residents met in the courthouse, formed an ad hoc anti-gambling committee and passed the following resolutions, as noted in a Vicksburg dispatch published in numerous newspapers, including The Watchman:

• “That a notice be given all professional gamblers, that the citizens of Vicksburg are resolved to exclude them from this place and its vicinity; and that 24 hours’ notice be given them to leave the place.”
• “That all persons permitting faro dealing in their houses, be also notified that they will be prosecuted therefor [sic].”
• “That 100 copies of the foregoing resolutions be printed and stuck up at the corners of the streets — and that this publication be deemed notice.”

The next morning, Sunday, July 5, the notices were posted throughout the city.

Crescendo of Violence

Immediately after the deadline passed, on the 6th, the militia, followed by several hundred citizens, marched to and stormed the “kangaroos,”* the known and suspected gambling houses in the waterfront district. In their frenzy, this vengeful faction destroyed any gambling equipment it came upon, leaving pieces of faro tables and roulette wheels in its wake.

The multitude sought out the coffeehouse owned by Alfred North, “one of the most profligate of the gang,” the Vicksburg report described. Acting on the rumor that armed gamblers were hiding inside, the mob surrounded the building and burst open the back door, which revealed only darkness.

The occupants fired their guns, instantly killing one of the pack’s leaders, reportedly a well-respected community member.

“This unexpected reception aroused the citizens to madness and desperation,” wrote the Natchez Courier (July 13, 1835).

The vigilantes shot back, and a bloody riot ensued. Outnumbering and overpowering the gamblers, the disgruntled mob extracted the four men inside, one of whom had been hit by a bullet. North wasn’t among them, but someone apprehended him nearby.

Before a mass of looky-loo townspeople, the alleged gamblers were hanged. Those executed were North, Hullums, Dutch Bill, Smith and McCall (full names weren’t published).

“All sympathy for the wretches was completely merged in detestation and horror of their crime,” the Vicksburg dispatch noted, referring to the gamblers.

Next, the entire procession collected, piled and burned all of the wooden gambling equipment littering the streets.

The following day, July 7, the dangling corpses were cut down from the gallows and buried in a ditch.

In the Minority

The dispatch from Vicksburg indicated that its citizens wholly supported the lynchings and those who carried them out. The report read:  

“Our city has for some days past been the theatre of the most novel and startling scene that we have ever witnessed. While we regret that the necessity for such scenes should have existed, we are proud of the public spirit and indignation against offenders displayed by the citizens, and congratulate them on having at length banished a class of individuals, whose shameless vices and daring outrages have long poisoned the springs of morality, and interrupted the relations of society.”

On the other hand, much of the rest of the U.S. and the world considered the lynchings vile. One such opinion was published in The Watchman (Aug. 8, 1935). It read, “It seems to us that the proceedings of the people of Vicksburg cannot be sanctioned by any well regulated mind. They are subversive of every principle of law and the good order of society, and ought to be discountenanced with horror by every good and just man.”

Exodus to More Tolerable Locales

After the Vicksburg murders, other towns along the Mississippi River exiled the gamblers from their communities.

The “proceedings at Vicksburg have kindled a spirit throughout the lower country which is breaking forth at every point, and obliging the blackleg fraternity to make their escape with all haste,” reported Niles’ Weekly Register (Aug. 8, 1835).

Due to these expulsions, the gamblers moved en masse to the West Coast.

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* The people of Vicksburg referred to the local gambling houses as “kangaroos” because one of the former casinos, which had burned down the year before, was called the Kangaroo Saloon.

Sources

1941-1952

The 1941 breakout of war between the U.S. and Japan started a series of deleterious events for Nevada’s first tango parlor Reno Club, Inc. and its proprietors. These included a tangle with a newcomer to the region’s gambling industry, William “Bill” F. Harrah.

Longstanding Bingo Business

A group of Japanese-American men, all U.S. citizens, debuted a gaming club in June 1931 at 232 N. Virginia Street in The Biggest Little City. Along with tango (also called bingo), the place  offered hazard, 21, craps and roulette. The owners were:

• Ben Furuta, president
• Fred Taketo Aoyama, vice president and assistant manager
• Fred Y. Yamagishi, secretary
• Y. Yamagishi (a younger relative of Fred Y.), manager

(Furuta lived in California, but the others were Northern Nevada residents.)

Immediately, Reno Club, Inc. was successful. It was the only tango salon in town until Bill Harrah came on the scene in 1937. His first Reno tango enterprise was on Center Street, outside of the city’s gambling core, and, thus, Harrah closed it after only a few months. His next, which he called Plaza Tango, was on Commercial Row. In March 1940, he added a second tango enterprise, next door to Reno Club, Inc., at 242 N. Virginia Street.

Beginning of the End

Once the U.S. declared war on Japan, on December 8, 1941, all people of Japanese descent living in the States were considered the enemy and treated as such. The owners of Reno Club, Inc. were no exception. For starters, the U.S. federal government impounded their money, leaving them with no capital with which to operate their gambling business.

Also, Furuta was interned in the Poston War Relocation Authority concentration camp in southwestern Arizona, close to the California border and near the town of Parker.  

The elder Yamagishi was arrested but released on parole, according to a newspaper article.

Aoyama was drafted but not called to serve.  

Given their tenuous financial position and alien status, Reno Club, Inc.’s proprietors asked Harrah if he wanted to acquire their enterprise. He offered to pay $20,000 ($337,000 today) for it. About a week later, when the owners told Harrah they agreed to the deal, he indicated the offer price no longer stood and now was $12,500 ($210,000 today), they reported. Consequently, they refused to sell to him.

May 1942

Instead, they renegotiated their lease agreement on their club’s building, with the owner, Frank Quinn of Young Investment Co.

The document outlined that Harrah could lease the premises for $350 (about $5,900 today) a month for a year, and if the war wasn’t over by that point, the lease would revert to month by month. It would remain in effect “until the general treaty of peace has been concluded between the Axis Nations on the one part and the United Nations on the other part” or until October 26, 1948, whichever came first (Nevada State Journal, July 16, 1947).

Right away, Harrah assumed the space and advertised another bingo club.

Dashed Hope

September 1945

When the war ended for the U.S. on September 1, 1945, the Reno Club, Inc. owners — now Fred and Y. Yamagishi and Fred Aoyama — sought to get back their gambling establishment. However, Harrah refused to vacate the premises, saying he didn’t have to until a peace treaty was signed between Japan and the States. (Typically, peace treaties aren’t signed until seven or more years after hostilities end, and until such a treaty is in place, those considered enemy aliens during the war technically retained that status.)

Instead of fighting for the return of their business, Aoyama and the Yamagishis sold it to the O’Keefes: James L., Charles P. and Lottie M. But they couldn’t operate it either because Harrah wouldn’t vacate it.

Another War, This One In Court

What followed was a five-year-long legal battle between the O’Keefes and Young Investment Co. and/or Harrah.

September 1946

To get Harrah out of their Reno Club, Inc., the O’Keefes sued the landlord Young Investment Co. The O’Keefes claimed Harrah had no right to occupy the premises now that the war was over. Young Investment, on the other hand, asserted that, according to the lease, Harrah was entitled to stay there until a peace treaty was effected or the lease ended in October 1948.

Later in September, Judge William McKnight of the district court ruled against the O’Keefes, and Harrah stayed put. The O’Keefes appealed.

July 1947

Next, the Nevada Supreme Court heard the case. The judges reversed the decision and returned the case to the lower court to be tried again.

September 1947

At the second trial in district court, Judge Frank McNamee of Las Vegas presided. Also, Harrah was a defendant alongside Young Investment.

February 1948

McNamee ruled differently than McKnight had and ordered Harrah to clear out of Reno Club, Inc.’s premises. But Harrah didn’t. Instead, he appealed to the state supreme court.

October 1948

Before the case was even presented to the supreme court judges, October 26 came around, thereby terminating the lease on 232 N. Virginia St. The gambler moved out of Reno Club, Inc. that day. The next month, the O’Keefes reopened Reno Club Inc. (and eliminated the comma from the name).

June 1949

The Nevada Supreme Court upheld McNamee’s 1948 ruling.

The Exclamation Point

May 1952

The O’Keefes again sued Harrah, this time seeking damages for the four months between June 15, 1946 and October 26, 1946, during which, according to the lawsuit, he’d illegally occupied Reno Club, Inc. This period was before the initial district court ruling in the O’Keefes versus Young Investment case. The O’Keefes asked for $133,632 (about $1.4 million today). The amount consisted of rent, at $100 ($1,000 today) a day, and $43,300 ($448,000 today) for use of the gambling business’ personal property.

Judge A.J. Maestretti determined the O’Keefes weren’t entitled to damages for any period before McNamee’s February 1948 ruling but were for the six months after that. Consequently, Maestretti awarded them $8,155 ($84,400 today) for rent, at $105 per day.

What do you think? Should Bill Harrah have vacated the Reno Club, Inc. premises when the war between the U.S. and Japan ended or not?

Sources

Lady Godiva has a new address. Looking gorgeous in a long blue dress, she and her horse distinctively embellish the front yard of a Carson City home. Godiva appear as though she’s arriving for a visit, but she’s there to stay, at least until she’s uprooted again.

Lady G in 2021

A Look Back

In 1970, when Nathan “Nate” S. Jacobson debuted the Kings Castle resort in Incline Village, Lady Godiva, naked and atop a horse, greeted visitors at the property’s arched entrance.

Five years later, Hyatt Hotels Corp. acquired Kings Castle. The new owner removed and auctioned off all of the themed décor and donated the proceeds to charity. Godiva was among the items.

William “Bill” Anderson, who owned the now defunct Ponderosa Ranch, snatched her up. Sadly, he passed away in 2008, and what happened to Godiva, if anything, between that time and when she moved to the capital city, is a mystery.

Does anyone know where she was during that period?

Acquisitions in the same month of two hotel-casinos near one another at Lake Tahoe in Northern Nevada is anomalous and newsworthy.

Hyatt Regency Lake Tahoe Resort, Spa and Casino (in Incline Village, NV)

Tahoe Biltmore (in Crystal Bay, NV)

What do you think about these acquisitions?

1955-1956

In March 1955, Nevada gaming regulators accused Caliente mayor Donald E. Rowan of cheating while dealing a 21 game — which is illegal — in the Shamrock Club. He’d operated the Clover Street gambling enterprise with his partner and father-in-law Joe Colombo for seven years. Rowan had been the elected head of this southeastern Nevada railroad community for six.

The charge jeopardized his mayorship (the election was a month away, and he was unopposed) and his entrepreneurship (he may lose his gambling license), both sources of income.

A Civil Servant

By 1955, Rowan, 46, had lived in Caliente for about 30 years. The Silver State native, born in Goldfield,  had worked for the Nevada Highway Department and during World War II, served as a medic with the U.S. Navy in the South Pacific.

Along with serving as mayor, Rowan’s civic contributions included having organized the Caliente Fire Department and being its first chief. Also, he’d formed and headed three local groups: the Rotary Club, Veterans of Foreign Wars and Chamber of Commerce.

Charge of Bubble Peeking

As ordered, Rowan appeared on April 1 before the Nevada Tax Commission to state his case.

At the hearing, the commissioners alleged that one of their undercover agents and a commission investigator both witnessed Rowan and another Shamrock dealer, Bob Powell, bubble peeking. In this move, advantageous to the house, the dealer crimps the top card on the deck with their thumb, creating a bulge, or bubble, and then peeks at the card’s number.

Rowan declared innocence, saying, “I might hold my deck funny, but I wasn’t peeking.” He asked the commission to act swiftly because if they decided to revoke his gambling license, he would bow out of the run for mayor. He wanted to give Caliente residents (about 1,500 people lived there) some time to find a replacement, and the filing deadline for candidates was only eight days away.

Allowing Minors to Gamble

The tax commissioners also accused Rowan of allowing under-age youths to gamble and drink alcohol at the Shamrock, violations of Nevada law as well.

Rowan’s response was that he’d let his son, who’d just returned home from college, drink a little with his friends, but stopped it when the friends invited others to join them. The mayor added that the Shamrock Club hadn’t been in trouble with the Caliente police ever, and one member of the force was at the club often, playing in a band.

How the Votes Went

Despite Rowan claiming innocence and having a clean gaming record since entering the industry seven years earlier, the tax commissioners stripped him of his gambling license, which had covered 21, craps and slot machines. They based their decision on the alleged “unsuitable method of operation” of the Shamrock. Their unanimous vote for revocation put Rowan out of business.

On the mayoral front, though, developments were positive for Rowan. Caliente’s residents re-elected him in May 1955, and he’d go on to complete a second term.

No Reprieve in Sight

Rowan requested a reinstatement of his gambling permit, in June 1955. However, the licensing arbitrators disallowed it and told him he had to wait a year before reapplying.

When that time rolled around, Rowan tried again, to no avail. In fact, he never would be granted another gambling license.

Other men, however, would get licensed for gambling at the Shamrock Club, until 2005, at which time the proprietors stopped offering games of chance. Today, the enterprise is still in business but as the Shamrock Pub, at a different Clover Street address.

Did the tax commissioners treat Rowan fairly or not?

Sources

1964-1965

“Build it, and they will come” wasn’t a sure thing for gambling houses in Nevada, particularly ones offering an uncommon game. Case in point is the Barboot Coffee House and Casino in Reno.

The Visionary

C. Mathias “Matt” Skender, moved from Michigan to The Biggest Little City to introduce his favorite gambling game — barbudi — there. Most recently, the Pennsylvania native had worked in various private barbudi clubs at night and as a projects engineer during the day. Prior to that he’d attended Wayne University in Detroit and before, the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh.

What It is

Barbudi, name variations of which include barbouti, barbooth, barboot, barbouti and barbotte, is a dice game for up to 12 players, believed to have originated in Greece around 450 B.C. After proliferating in Eastern Europe, it made its way to the Near East then to Mexico and, eventually, Canada and the U.S. By the 1960s, barbudi was played by thousands of people in Idaho, Oregon, California and a few other states but wasn’t recognized legally in The Silver State, according to Skender. The game was most popular among certain groups of people, including Greeks, Turks, Basques and Jews.

Educating Regulators

After landing in Reno, Skender applied in February 1964 with the state’s gambling regulators for a license to offer barbudi in a club he planned to open at 208 N. Center Street (between E. Commercial Row and E. Second Street). 

Because the Nevada Gaming Commission (NGC) members were unfamiliar with barbudi, Skender explained and demonstrated it to them. He indicated he’d spent 20 years improving the game and, accordingly, had designed a table layout for it, which he showed them. It contained a row of 12 numbered positions on one side, on which dealers kept track of individual bets using red and green colored markers, each marked with a number between 1 and 12.

The following month, the NGC approved Skender for such a gambling license. For some reason, though, the location he’d chosen for his enterprise didn’t work out, and his license expired.

Getting Approval, Take Two

To support himself, Skender began driving a cab. He told all of his customers about barbudi and how great it was and invited them to his barbudi establishment once it opened.

It took him nearly a year, but the barbudi afficionado finally scouted out another prospective location, this one on Fourth Street. He’d also, by this time, found some people interested in investing in the enterprise. One was the property’s landlord, Martin Schwamb, the founder of Martin Iron Works located next door. Another was William C. Franks.

In September 1965, Skender reapplied for a gambling license and for him, his wife Betty Skender, Schwamb and Franks to open a gambling club worth $12,500 ($108,000 today). In November, the NGC approved the group for one barbudi game, one poker game and four slot machines.

At Long Last

That same month, Skender debuted the Barboot Coffee House and Casino at 560 E. Fourth Street (between Evans Avenue and Sutro Street). Along with the gambling, he offered Turkish coffee and sandwiches, free for players, but no alcoholic beverages.

At the time, he told the Nevada State Journal (NSJ), “In the year or so that I’ve been here, I’ve met hundreds of people who know barboot and have long wanted a nice place to play the game. I also think it might catch on with a lot of people who would just like to try something new in the way of coffee house gambling” (Nov. 26, 1965).

Not So Fast

In only a few weeks, though, the new entrepreneur realized he’d been overly optimistic. In reality, his Barboot Coffee House just wasn’t getting the level of business he’d thought it would.

He shuttered it, for good.

Why do you suppose this gambling place did poorly?

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Photo: by Christin Gasner, from Pond5.com

Sources

Earl Warren (front center) and the rest of the U.S. Supreme Court justices, 1967

1952-1968

Soon after two new federal taxes — the tax on wagers and the wagering occupational tax — went into effect in late 1951, problems with them arose. (See Part I for a description of and impetus behind the taxes.)

First Complication to Arise

The constitutionality of the occupational tax was called into question. In May 1952 U.S. District Court Judge George A. Welsh flat out declared it federal legislators’ unconstitutional infringement on states’ power and described it as “a police measure enacted by Congress under the guise of a tax bill” (Reno Evening Gazette, May 6, 1952). This ruling came during the trial of a Philadelphia gambler charged with failure to buy the gambling tax stamp.

An editorial in Florida’s Tampa Times pointed out the gambling stamp tax was “contradictory” and “hypocritical” (March 3, 1953).

“It is a case of the federal government on one hand sanctioning gambling, while state and local law enforcement officers are expected to stamp out gambling,” it read. “Winking at gambling because it has become a federal tax revenue producer would be outright hypocritical and against the wishes of the majority of Americans.”

Other critics argued the tax violated wager-takers’ Fifth Amendment right to protection from self-incrimination. On one hand, requiring them to register forced them to provide information that could implicate them in breaking their state’s state anti-gambling law, were that in fact the case, and in doing so, invite prosecution.  Many newspapers, including The Sacramento Bee and The Indianapolis News, published the names of stamp purchasers.

On the other hand, if the wager-takers ignored the federal law, to keep their underground gambling operation secret, they risked federal prosecution for not buying the stamp and registering.

Not So Effective

A second issue was the taxes weren’t achieving the desired ends. A year in, they hadn’t significantly reduced gambling; at best, they’d slightly deterred it. They hadn’t forced gamblers out of business; instead, the operators had gone underground.

The taxes also failed to bring in anywhere near the level of revenue expected. Congress had predicted an influx of about $400 million in the first year, but the actual figure was about $9 million, not even one-third of the predicted amount.

Whereas a flurry of stamp tax buying had occurred after the Revenue Act was passed, taking total sales to over 19,000, purchases dramatically fell off in 1952.

“The professional gamblers soon wised up and developed a ‘wait and see’ attitude,” reported The Tampa Times.

The reasons for the suboptimal results, according to Frank Lohn, chief of the Internal Revenue Bureau’s intelligence division, were that the bureau lacked sufficient staff to go after unpaid gambling taxes and that the constitutionality of the special tax remained undecided.

“Many gamblers believe the high court will overturn the law, and in the meantime they are not too afraid of violating it,” reported the United Press (Reno Evening Gazette, Nov. 1, 1952).

High Court Weighs In … Twice

That was not the case, however; the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the special tax, 6 to 3, in March 1953. About a year later, it ruled that purchasing a wagering stamp tax did not make the buyer immune from possible state prosecution, thus the self-incrimination problem persisted.

Fast forward 14 years to 1967. Significantly fewer gamblers nationwide were buying a tax stamp, 5,917 in that year, for example. About 2,000 gambling tax violation cases were advancing through the courts.

Then in January 1968, in another twist, the Supreme Court, in a 7-to-1 decision, ruled that the stamp tax law violated people’s Fifth Amendment right, but the justices didn’t declare it unconstitutional. Instead, they essentially gave wage-takers a way to avoid prosecution for noncompliance: claim self-incrimination.

The sole dissenter, Chief Justice Earl Warren, said the decision made the law unenforceable and unconstitutional. Justice and treasury department officials predicted it would hamper crimefighting at the federal, state and local levels and jeopardize current prosecutions.

Fix For The Problem

In 1974, Congress passed Public Law 93-499 to replace the two wagering taxes mandated in 1951. The new statute required certain gamblers to buy a $500 (about $2,800 today) wagering tax stamp annually and pay 2 percent on all bets they take. December 1, 1974 was the effective date, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms was tasked with enforcement.

This law avoided the Fifth Amendment issues inherent in the previous one. It did so by prohibiting the federal government from divulging, to any law enforcement agency, private group or citizen, the information gamblers gave, as required, about themselves, their partners, employees and customers.

Types of gambling exempt from the new law were casino betting, state-licensed parimutuel wagering, state lotteries and coin-operated machines on which a stamp tax was charged. 

As with the prior wagering taxes, the purpose of Public Law 93-499 was to “increase federal revenues and curtail an important source for financing criminal activities” — certain types of gambling, reported The Sun-Telegram (Jan. 19, 1975).

Sources

1951

Gambling is the lifeblood of organized crime.

This was U.S. Senator Estes Kefauver’s conclusion after the Special Committee on Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce, which he headed, concluded its investigation.

The Kefauver Committee’s work, in part, involved conducting hearings in 14 U.S. cities, during which they grilled (sometimes, unsuccessfully) about 600 witnesses, including big-time Mobsters, some of their associates and officials knowledgeable about Mob activity. The 15-month query shone a spotlight on gambling taking place at the time and for years before, most of it illegal, prohibited by law in most states.

The hearings were televised, and Americans tuned in, rapt. The broadcasts opened their eyes to the who, what,  where, when and how of gambling and other organized crime happening all around them. By March 1951, 72 percent of U.S. residents were familiar with the Kefauver committee and what it was doing.

Crackdown on Some Gamblers

As a result of the Senate committee’s findings, Kefauver recommended the federal government impose a 10 percent tax on all gambling. At the same time, U.S. residents, facing a likely federal personal income tax increase, expressed dissatisfaction at gambling operators (gamblers) paying little or no taxes on the loads of cash they made.

These two factors in large part pressured Congress to act, and it did in 1951 but not to the extent Kefauver had suggested. It imposed two taxes* on a subset of gamblers, individuals who received bets from people — bookmakers, numbers writers, and punch board and lottery operators.

The goal was to force these people to pay heavy taxes or go out of business, and in doing so, shrink the  gambling industry nationwide and generate a good chunk of revenue for the U.S.

Trio of Mandates

One of the new federal levies, called the tax on wagers, was 10 percent of all gross receipts.

The other was an occupational tax, often referred to as the gambling stamp tax. It required wager takers to buy a special tax stamp every year by December 1 and display it in their place of business or, for those without such a location, on their person. The stamp cost $50 (about $525 today).

Anyone required to pay the special tax also had to register with the local Internal Revenue Bureau (IRB) collector and provide their name, home and business addresses and the name and home address of their partners, employees and clients. Once the bureau received the information, it provided a copy to local law enforcement officials and maintained its own public list of all gambling stamp purchasers.

These wagering-related taxes went into effect on November 1, 1951.

Failure to Comply

The penalty for not purchasing the $50 tax stamp was a fine of at least $1,000 ($10,300 today) but not higher than $5,000 ($51,500 today).

Gamblers who had a stamp but didn’t display it were fined, $50 for those who’d forgotten to do so and $100 for those who outright refused to do so.

Providing false information on the relevant forms was punishable by up to $10,000 in fines and five years of imprisonment.

Regarding the 10 percent tax on wagers, IRB Commissioner John B. Dunlap told the United Press that “cases of willful evasion or attempt to defeat the tax will be promptly referred to the department of justice with recommendation for criminal prosecution” (Nevada State Journal, Dec. 5, 1951).

Early Stamp Numbers

By the first deadline, December 1, 1951, a total of 7,706 gamblers had applied for the federal gambling tax stamp. The state of Washington submitted the most applications, at 1,412. Next was Montana, with 902. Nevada, where gambling was legal and wide open, accounted for only 33 applications.

It wasn’t long before problems with these latest federal taxes arose.

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Look for Part II next week.

* Congress enacted the two taxes on wage takers through the Revenue Act of 1951, which also temporarily raised federal individual income and federal corporate taxes.

Sources

1951

A violent episode in a gambling saloon in Hawthorne, Nevada and ensuing events destroyed at least one resident family, the Gonces.

A Little Background

Vollie “Sam” V. Gonce and Kathleen L. Chapman had tied the knot at age 38 and 21, respectively, in Storey County in 1946. It was a second marriage for them both. She’d gotten divorced earlier in the year on the grounds of cruelty, he, a year earlier, because of desertion. The two had four daughters. The family lived in Hawthorne, a former bustling military town with a population of only about 1,900 people in 1951.

Gonce was a blackjack dealer who’d worked in several gambling clubs in Reno. Earlier, in 1938, when living in Colorado and going by Vollie, he’d served time in the state penitentiary for burglary. In his youth, at age 16, he’d seriously injured his left leg in a work accident at an industrial corn production facility, which had led to amputation.

A Vengeful Heart

On Friday, March 23, 1951, Gonce, now age 43 entered Hawthorne’s 222 Club sometimes between 1:30 and 3:00 in the morning and walked up to a table where bartender Leonard E. Erickson was dealing 21. Gonce said to him, “I’ve waited a long time for this” then pulled a 0.32-20 Colt revolver from his pocket and shot him.

Bystander Marie Diggins reacted by trying to wrest the gun away from Gonce. During the struggle, he yelled at her, “I’ll blast your guts out, too” and fired, the impact knocking her down.

Gonce then left and sped away in his 1946 Packard.

Erickson, 37, was married, the father of three and a former Mineral County deputy sheriff. He and Gonce had been feuding over something for a long time, a fact widely known among Hawthorne residents. Erickson’s gunshot wound wasn’t serious.

Diggins’ injury, to her stomach, however, was; she remained in critical condition in Mineral County Hospital for the first three days afterward. Eventually, she recovered to the extent that she could. Diggins, 35, was a civil service employee who worked in the small mining town of Babbitt.

On A Mission

A local group of armed men using Jeeps and an airplane set out into the barren hills around Hawthorne to track down Gonce.

A few hours later, the posse came upon the Packard, parked on the road leading to the Pamlico Mine, about 10 miles southeast of town. The men followed a set of tracks leading away from the car, which took them to a cliff of rocks. Per their report, they spotted Gonce’s lifeless body among them, dead from a gunshot wound to the chest. Suicide was the official ruling.

On or near Gonce’s corpse, the searchers found the Colt, a 0.30-30 Winchester carbine, the man’s cane and a box on which was scrawled, “Hayden Gallop, you are next.” (Gallop was a Hawthorne resident, too.)

Gonce’s pockets contained two notes. One, on the back of an envelope, was a last minute will in which he bequeathed everything to his wife Kathleen.

Another was a pseudo-apology, written on the back of a keno ticket. It read: “Too bad the girl, whoever she is, couldn’t mind her own business … that smart alec bartender … and most of the people of Hawthorne can’t mind their own damned business” (The Sacramento Bee, March 24, 1951).

Tragedy Compounded

About 1.5 months into the aftermath of the entire ordeal, Kathleen Gonce, now age 26, went missing. Her brother, who also lived in Hawthorne, became concerned and started looking for the widow.

Eventually, he located her, in the family car in roughly the same place where her husband allegedly had killed himself.

Kathleen had slashed her wrists. She was dead.

The couple is buried in the Hawthorne Cemetery.

Sources