Bookies’ Bookies Not So Good With Numbers

California, Crimes / Violence / Punishments: Tax Evasion, Flamingo (Las Vegas, NV), Gambling: Bookmaking, Governing / Regulatory Bodies: Internal Revenue Service, Hy Goldbaum, It Really Happened, Las Vegas--Nevada, McNeil Island Corrections Center (WA), Stardust (Las Vegas, NV), West Hollywood--CaliforniaLeave a comment

1945-1955 In the late 1940s, three bookies — or commissioners, as they preferred to be called — operated on California’s Sunset Strip in West Hollywood under the name, Golden News Service. Hy Goldbaum, George Capri and Edward Cooke, all in their late 40s or early 50s at the time, specialized in assuming large bets that…

Nevada’s Black Book: Civil Rights Violation?

Desert Inn (Las Vegas, NV), Gambling Laws / Regulations, Gambling Laws / Regulations: Nevada's Black Book / Excluded Person List, Governing / Regulatory Bodies: Nevada Gaming Control Board, It Really Happened, John "The Bat" Battaglia, Las Vegas--Nevada, Louis Tom Dragna, Marshall Caifano / Johnny Marshall, Nevada, Politicians / Politics: NV Governor Grant Sawyer2 Comments

1960-1967 Los Angeles mobsters, Louis Tom Dragna and John “The Bat” Battaglia, conversed in a hotel-casino cocktail lounge on the Las Vegas Strip one day in February 1960. But their visit was cut short when Nevada Gaming Control Board (NGCB) agents appeared with local police who arrested the two. They charged them with vagrancy and…