The Wanted Man of Mystery
1941 The man who played roulette in the Palace Club nearly every day for six months was noticeable for his suave appearance. Henry Helmut, age 47, had a bit of gray hair and sported a…
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1941 The man who played roulette in the Palace Club nearly every day for six months was noticeable for his suave appearance. Henry Helmut, age 47, had a bit of gray hair and sported a…
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…
1904, 1915, 1936 Against a backdrop of sagebrush and dust in Nevada’s early, remote mining towns, saloons drew men for drinking and gambling. That combination, along with contrarian/antagonistic personalities, sometimes led to disputes that turned…
1916 The year brought indictments in Las Vegas against individuals for violating Nevada’s anti-gambling statute, which was unusual because law enforcement generally ignored or poorly enforced it. Operating a gambling game then constituted a felony.…
1956 When auditors for Nevada reviewed its books, they discovered the El Rancho casino on the Las Vegas Strip had underpaid the requisite gambling taxes over nine quarters by $39,000 ($350,500 today). Despite the claims…
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…
1934 After Nevada legalized gambling in 1931, a faction opposed to the industry fought to have it eradicated. “A group of Nevada citizens felt there was a growing protest against the injury being done our…
1941 Ten years after Nevada legalized gambling and shortened the residency requirement for divorce from six months to six weeks, Montana took steps to compete. Bills to legalize gambling and to allow 30-day divorces were…
1883-1884 A gambling affinity, in part, did in Everton J. Conger’s career as associate justice of the Territory of Montana. President Chester A. Arthur suspended him in March 1883. Conger had served three years in…
1972 Recognize these cars? A Pinto, Chevelle, Javelin and Datsun 240Z? Harrah’s hotel-casino in Reno, Nevada gave them away as well as cash in four weekly drawings for $35,000 worth of prizes ($205,000 today) over the…
1959 In February, The New York Times outed Clifford A. Jones. It brought to light that he held gambling interests in and out of Nevada, which The Silver State’s gaming law then prohibited. It was…
1933 When panhandling in Bakersfield, California, an Arthur J. Hayden received 25 cents ($4.70 today), which he took to a casino and parlayed into $690 ($13,000 today). The next day he grew his winnings to…
1924-1932 The story of the estate of a long-ago Nevada gambler after his passing is strange and unfortunate. John Quinn was a man who’d lost and made large fortunes in gambling and mining stock deals…
1954 Arthur R. Schultz of Ely, Nevada, who’ previously had held a gambling license for slot machines, asked then District Attorney of White Pine County, Jon R. Collins, to rule on whether or not a…
1949 The article, “Las Vegas Gamblers Arming in Control Battle,” ran on the front page of a Los Angeles newspaper in the third week of December, to the chagrin of Nevada gambling regulators, casino owners,…
1975-1976 Nevada’s infamous “Black Book,” which contains information about the unsavory individuals who are banned from casinos, still exists today but under a different moniker. In 1975, citizen Beni Casselle expressed to the state gaming…