Quick Fact - Oops! They Don't Match
1931 After a brand new roulette setup was put in use at a Las Vegas, Nevada casino, it was discovered the number 28 was black on the wheel, as it should be, but red on…
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1931 After a brand new roulette setup was put in use at a Las Vegas, Nevada casino, it was discovered the number 28 was black on the wheel, as it should be, but red on…
1949-1979 Harolds wasn’t the only Northern Nevada club with gambling that the Smiths owned for decades. In 1950, the renowned gambling family purchased Jabberwock Gun Club, located on the Pyramid Lake Highway in what today…
1937-1981 An innocent man was placed in law enforcement’s crosshairs in late 1930s Los Angeles for a heinous crime … the frame-up stuck. Caught Unawares While strolling on Southern California’s Redondo Beach Strand, or boardwalk,…
1952 “Someone very dear to you is being held and will be killed if you don’t give me the money.” This was the content of the note, a bluff, Frederick Charles Will, handed to the…
1952 “One of the members of the Journal news staff stopped in at a [Reno, Nevada] casino one night last week, put a nickel in a slot machine and hit the jackpot. The…
1968-1971 A couple and a third man approached a 21 table in the Frontier in Las Vegas, Nevada on a Monday afternoon. The husband, Douglas Anderson, distracted the dealer. In that moment, his wife, Beverly…
1934-1938 While doing time at Alcatraz, Alphonse “Scarface” Capone, infamous Chicago organized crime boss heavily involved in gambling, played the banjo and mandola (a large mandolin) in the prison band, The Rock Islanders, a rotating…
1907 A faro game with a $50 limit (at least $1,200 today) was underway in the Tonopah Club on a Thursday night in February. Colonel Abe F. Brown, one of the three proprietors of this…
1940 “Apparently unaware that gold has been forbidden as a medium of exchange, a tall, dark complexioned cowpuncher walked into a [Reno, Nevada] gambling club last night and startled the dealer by casually dropping a…
1940 They couldn’t just agree to disagree. They were the sheriffs of two bordering counties in different states. Sheriff Guy Joyner of Shelby County, Tennessee insisted illegal gambling was taking place just past the state…
1967 The month following closure of its on-site Bullpen casino, the Nevada State Prison sold the brass coins that inmates had used for decades (since 1932) for wagering and as currency. Sets, containing one coin…
1949 “Eight the hard way!” “It’s the Big Dick!” “Next shooter, please!” “Seven, you lose!” When translated into the French language, these common phrases shouted by stickmen during craps lose their pizazz and bite, their…
1940 After some angry husbands in Los Angeles, California complained their wives were gambling away the grocery money, two vice squad officers raided the Monday night birthday party of Ann Dicker, a 73-year-old great-grandmother, at…
1957 These fortunes and statements were what appeared in the display of a particular slot machine when one read the whole reel from left to right. Short three- to five-word phrases replaced the typical fruit…
1960 “Las Vegas seemed to be both fascinated and frightened by the little computing machine,” reported Ray Duncan in the Independent Star-News (Dec. 5, 1960). The referenced device, via a dial on its front, advised…
Former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover was such a rabid fan of horse racing that every summer, when in nearby La Jolla for his annual physical exam, he visited Del Mar in California, where he…