1931 Robberies plagued Reno. The Capitol bar and the Henry Club, both offering games of chance, were hit inside of eight days. A rumor circulated that notorious gangsters were headed to the Northern Nevada city. It was May; gambling had been legal for two months. Consequently, owners and operators of The Biggest Little City’s gaming and…
1931 Soon after Governor Fredrick “Fred” B. Balzar approved wide-open gambling for Nevada, three men applied for an initial gambling license from the City of Las Vegas to operate a craps game at Lorenzi Park in the Pavilion building. Lorenzi, with a pool, dance area, two lakes, rowboats and concessions and an affordable entry fee,…
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 the betting layout. Confusion ensued, particularly concerning red or black bets, when the ball stopped at 28. Was it red…
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,…
1931-1932 Actors Clara Bow and Rex Bell gambled at the Meadows in Las Vegas in summer 1931 and racked up a $1,100 loss (about $18,000 today), for which they left an IOU. By December, the two hadn’t paid what they owed (Bow had wriggled out of covering a gaming debt the year before). The casino…
1931 Using a gambling table as her dais, Canada-born evangelist, Mildred “Minnie” Kennedy, delivered fire and brimstone, revival-type sermons upstairs at the Boulder Club in Las Vegas from Aug. 23 to 30. A large sign on the casino advertised: “HERE Mother Evangel Kennedy.” This followed Kennedy’s second marriage to her husband, Guy Hudson (he’d been…
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 state by gambling — not only because of the evil done in depriving needy citizens of their depressed earnings without…
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 the town to be a model community that afforded a clean living environment. To achieve this, federal legislators officially designated…
1930 In December, while vacationing in Southern California, Nevada Governor Frederick “Fred” Balzar — foretelling the future — told reporters that gambling already was wide open in his state and that a bill making it official certainly would be brought before the legislature at its next session. It did happen; Silver State lawmakers legalized gaming in March…
1931 Belle Livingstone wasn’t the typical Nevada gambling club owner. She’d acted on the stage and screen in the 1890s. She’d mingled with royalty and wealth in Europe and the United States. During Prohibition, she’d operated a speakeasy on New York’s Park Avenue. During that stint, she’d been arrested three times and spent 30 days…