The History of Las Vegas Casinos
The history of the casinos in Las Vegar started a long time from the online casinos of today. It started with one man, Benny Binion, a rough and tumble guy from a poor town in Texas who was involved in illicit gambling and alcohol sales as a young man. In the ‘20s, Benny ran a floating craps game in Dallas and in 1931, shot a man over a bootlegging dispute. Benny’s relationship with powerful Texans, including the Sheriff, protected him, but in 1946, that all changed. A new Sheriff was elected, an honest one, and that meant trouble for Benny, who took his wife and five children and headed out of town.
The Move to Vegas
They ended up in Las Vegas, Nevada, a place where gambling was legal, which was just perfect for Benny, who didn’t mind having the actual law on his side for a change. Benny started by going partners on a downtown casino on Fremont Street known as the Las Vegas Club with J. Kell Houssels, also from Texas. When Houssels moved on, Benny turned the space into a new gambling establishment called The Westerner. Unfortunately, Benny had disagreements with his partners in The Westerner, in part over how to treat their customers, and they closed down.
The Horseshoe
Undeterred, Benny bought a casino further down Fremont Street called the El Dorado in 1951. While the El Dorado didn’t look like much, Benny saw the potential in it. He renamed it the Horseshoe and spent plenty of money on renovations and improvements, which included carpeting the floors and creating a cowboy theme by outfitting bartenders and waitresses in Western garb.
The Biggest Limits in Town
What really separated Binion’s Horseshoe Casino from the rest though, was the sign outside: The World’s Highest Limits. Benny meant it too. He wasn’t afraid to take any wager, no matter how high, and this fact attracted gamblers everywhere. No doubt due to a lack of trust borne from his days as a gambling and alcohol hustler in Dallas, Benny installed his sons, Jack and Ted, as casino bosses, and even had his wife Teddy Jane helping with the accounting. Binion’s Horseshoe Casino became a downtown Las Vegas staple almost as soon as it opened, although it would not start to become really famous until Nick “the Greek” Dandalos and Johnny Moss came to town. Their epic heads-up poker battle became the stuff of legend and sowed the seeds for the World Series of Poke. But also clearly a seed for the online casinos with all the new games like video poker and slots games.
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