{"id":166514,"date":"2021-03-07T15:47:28","date_gmt":"2021-03-07T23:47:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/?p=166514"},"modified":"2021-03-07T16:18:02","modified_gmt":"2021-03-08T00:18:02","slug":"mob-museum-spotlights-90-years-of-legal-gambling-in-nevada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/mob-museum-spotlights-90-years-of-legal-gambling-in-nevada\/","title":{"rendered":"Mob Museum Spotlights 90 Years of Legal Gambling in Nevada"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Mob Museum in Las Vegas is celebrating 90 years of legal gambling in the Silver State with a two-part speaker series on the mobsters and others who built the casino industry.<\/p>\n

\"Slot
Vintage slot machines are on display at the Mob Museum in Las Vegas. The museum is celebrating 90 years of legal gambling in the state. (Image: Las Vegas Review-Journal<\/em>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201c<\/span>Wide Open: 90 Years of Legal Gambling in Nevada\u201d begins March 11 at 7 pm in the museum\u2019s historic courtroom. The first night\u2019s speakers are Geoff Schumacher, the museum\u2019s vice president of exhibits and programs, and UNLV associate history professor Michael Green.<\/p>\n

The second event is March 25, featuring author David G. Schwartz, a professor and vice provost for faculty affairs at UNLV, and former MGM Resorts executive Alan Feldman. Feldman also is distinguished fellow in responsible gaming at UNLV\u2019s International Gaming Institute.<\/p>\n

The March 11 event will \u201cchart the gambling industry\u2019<\/span>s rise from legalization in 1931 through the Mob-controlled golden age of the 1950s,\u201d according to the museum website.<\/p>\n

The second portion will examine the industry\u2019s growth from the 1960s through the megaresort era that hit its stride in the 1990s.<\/p>\n

Tickets for both events are sold out. However, viewers can watch a free livestream on the museum website, themobmuseum.org<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Wide-Open Gambling<\/h2>\n

In 1909, the state banned almost all games of chance, according to the Nevada Resort Association website. The association is the gaming industry\u2019s lobbying arm.<\/p>\n

Within a few years, gaming laws were \u201crelaxed,\u201d allowing for <\/span>nickle-in-the-slot machines that paid in drinks, cigars, and amounts of money under $2.<\/p>\n

\n

By 1919, all cities and counties throughout the state were licensing card rooms that permitted social games such as bridge and whist,\u201d the association\u2019s website notes.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

With the Great Depression underway, wide-open gambling became legal in Nevada on March 19, 1931, when Gov. Fred Balzar (R) signed Assembly Bill 98 into law.<\/p>\n

The event did not attract much attention, even from the Las Vegas Review-Journal <\/i>newspaper, Green says on the Mob Museum\u2019s Instagram page.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt probably tells you everything you need to know that that afternoon the lead story in the Review-Journal<\/i> was about the new hospital at Eighth and Ogden,\u201d he says. \u201cLas Vegans didn\u2019t think this was going to change the world. It turned out it did.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mobsters in Las Vegas<\/h2>\n

Over time, legal casinos opened downtown near the train station and began to pop up on the desert highway toward Los Angeles. That highway now is known as the Las Vegas Strip.<\/p>\n

Between 1941 and 1958, the highway became home to 13 resort hotels, according to author Larry Gragg. He also is a history professor at Missouri University of Science and Technology.<\/p>\n

\n

The early casinos on the highway during this era reflected a Western frontier theme. When the Flamingo opened in December 1946, a \u201cdramatic shift\u201d in design and marketing took place, Gragg says on the museum\u2019s Instagram page.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cThe shift here has to do with the effort to creating affordable luxury for tourists,\u201d he says. \u201cWhat they meant by that was if you come to Las Vegas, you will have all the amenities of a resort hotel. You\u2019ll have beautiful rooms, fine dining, a nicely landscaped property, in addition to an array of table games and slot machines, with the additional advantage of having big-name entertainment in showrooms.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Flamingo was opened by gangster Benjamin \u201cBugsy\u201d Siegel<\/a>, who earlier was part owner with other mobsters of the El Cortez hotel-casino in downtown Las Vegas.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Over the years, Mafia infiltration into Las Vegas led to federal investigations and courtroom convictions. This era is portrayed in the 1995 Las Vegas Mafia movie Casino<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Mob Museum in Las Vegas is celebrating 90 years of legal gambling in the Silver State with a two-part speaker series on the mobsters and others who built the casino industry. \u201cWide Open: 90 Years of Legal Gambling in Nevada\u201d begins March 11 at 7 pm in the museum\u2019s historic courtroom. The first night\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":166517,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[62,18],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nMob Museum Spotlights 90 Years of Legal Gambling in Nevada - Casino.org Mob Museum Spotlights 90 Years of Legal Gambling in Nevada<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Mob Museum in Las Vegas is celebrating 90 years of legal gambling in the Silver State with a two-part speaker series on the mobsters and others who The Mob Museum in Las Vegas is celebrating 90 years of legal gamlbing in Nevada with a two-part speaker series in March.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/mob-museum-spotlights-90-years-of-legal-gambling-in-nevada\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mob Museum Spotlights 90 Years of Legal Gambling in Nevada - 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