Quick Fact - "Floating Craps"
1953 The Sands hotel-casino in Las Vegas, Nevada offered craps not poolside but in the pool! Photo from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas’ Digital Collections
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1953 The Sands hotel-casino in Las Vegas, Nevada offered craps not poolside but in the pool! Photo from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas’ Digital Collections
1944 The debut of the Bonanza Club* on October 3, 1944 in Reno, Nevada, was doubly significant. Formerly the Barn Club, the new casino was regarded as one of, if not, the finest in the…
1915 The ’49 Camp, one of the attractions at the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, offered a gambling experience in which chips could be bought for money but cashed only for free-admission coupons for the other…
1968 During the grand opening of the Silver Spur casino at 221 N. Virginia Street, Reno, Nevada on July 1, 1968, the ribbon was cut with a silver spur that Audie Murphy used in the…
1951 Prior to the July grand opening of the new Greyhound Lines Inc. bus terminal at 224 S. Center Street in Reno, Pyramid Securities Inc. applied for a gambling license and permission to offer games…
1947-1952 Despite New York mobsters trying to scare her off, an ambitious woman — Elaine Townsend (née Margaret Helgeson) — held her own as a gambling operator in the late 1940s. Bright, young and gorgeous, she…
1950 The $1.6 million Desert Inn resort had just opened in Las Vegas, and a gambling naif nearly put it out of business. A 22-year-old sailor, who didn’t know much about gambling, bet $1 on…
1946-1947 On the third Tuesday of April 1946, after work at the Southern Pacific Shop in Sparks, Nevada, Sam Lemel took the bus to Reno and went to Harolds Club where he played craps. He…
1931 Twenty-six miles southeast of Las Vegas, the United States government, in 1931, developed Boulder City as the place to house men working on the Hoover Dam (originally Boulder Dam). The Bureau of Reclamation required…
1946 A tastefully attired gent in his 40s sat at a craps table around 7 p.m. on a March Tuesday and began to wager with bundles of $1,000 ($12,000 today). After betting Harolds Club’s house…
1895 When two small boys appeared in a San Francisco, California court for shooting craps, the arresting officer testified. Then this transpired: Judge: “Are you sure the boys were shooting craps?” Officer: “Of course, I…
1949-1953 Only months after Cleveland bar owner, Norman Khoury’s 1949 acquisition of Club Savoy in Las Vegas, Nevada, California mobster/gambler Allen Smiley, an associate of the then-deceased Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, unexpectedly approached him. Smiley introduced…
1945-1950 Although gambling was illegal in Miami, Florida, in the 1940s, one lavish casino operated there for five years with the blessing of the local sheriff. Club 86, on Biscayne Boulevard, which belonged to local…
1947 To keep players gambling at their clubs, Las Vegas, Nevada casinos boosted incentives with offerings such as double odds on craps, bingo prizes of $1,000 ($10,900 today), extra slot machine jackpots and brand new…
1905-1941 Imagine in the early 1900s, a block about the length of a football field, in the Mojave Desert in Nevada where gambling, drinking and prostitution prevailed free from law enforcement’s intrusion, and where fights…
1930 Silent film star, Clara Bow, spent one September evening in 1930 playing illegal gambling games at a Lake Tahoe, Nevada casino. Both winning and losing at roulette, craps, 21 and the dice game, chuck-a-luck,…