Quick Fact – Holiday Season Launch
1946 Which famous hotel-casino debuted in Las Vegas, Nevada the day after Christmas in this year? Hint: Jimmy Durante was the grand opening star; while on stage he destroyed a $1,600 piano (a $20,000 value today).
Quick Fact – So Done
1946 Mobster Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel’s wife, Esta (née Esther Krakower) filed for divorce in Reno, Nevada after 17 years of marriage. The two had wed when she was 18 and he was 23. In the divorce settlement, Esta got their Hollywood house, their New York apartment, Bugsy’s Cadillac, $600 a week in alimony ($7,500 today)…
Quick Fact – Flying Casino
1946 Owners of the Casa Vegas gambling club in Southern Nevada, Duke Wiley and Eddie Alias, announced their plan to acquire and convert a surplus, four-engine transport plane into a casino in the air. Slated solely for the then three-hour flight between Las Vegas and Reno, it was to offer on-board roulette, music and entertainment.…
Blaming It On The Dice
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 began by betting two half-dollars, which he lost. He left the casino and returned a bit later, only to lose…
Quick Fact – Bonus of Hosiery
1946 Some Las Vegas, Nevada casinos handed out women’s nylons as slot machine and tango game* prizes. When the city’s board of commissioners found out, they banned it, threatening repeat offenders with losing their gambling license. It wasn’t the hosiery the officials took offense to; it was the casinos offering merchandise to encourage the playing…
“Gambling Fool’s” 3-Day Craps Game
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 limit for a while, which yielded $7,500 a point on a win, management waived it. The game lasted 36 hours,…
Tales of Rodent Roulette
1946 Nebraska carnival workers dreamed up a strange variation of roulette, and quickly found themselves in court after police and the humane society objected to it. The game, however, gained at least a few fans. Dubbed rat or mouse roulette, it consisted of a rotating wheel in the shape of an octagon laid flat with…