For over four decades, Benny Binion was a local hero in Las Vegas; actually, he was a hero among the gambling community worldwide. He was the “Cowboy Gambler,” who-like his image in bronze on a horse at Second and Ogden streets in downtown Las Vegas – always rode “high in the saddle.” His casino, Binion’s Horseshoe, gained the reputation for being the “gamblers’ casino” in Las Vegas. His casino started the World Series of Poker, and his casino was the only casino that would take a “hit” for any amount of money. Here, a hit is a single bet on a single play (see Glossary). It is a bet where both sides let it all ride, one time, one spin of the wheel, and one whirl of the dice—no next time, one time. Most casinos will limit “hits” to the normal table limits—several thousands of dollars. Binion’s had no limit. The limit was what the player was willing to lay down on the table in hard cash. Hits are risky business, because the laws of probability are based upon large numbers—large numbers of bets. One time a gambler came in with a suitcase of money. He opened the suitcase and poured $777,000 on the table. He bet on “don’t pass” on the craps table. The dice rolled a few times, and the boxman called out “don’t pass wins.” The cage prepared a stack of cash worth $1,554,000, and the gambler took the money and left. If a casino that was owned by a publicly traded corporation did something so risky, a stockowner lawsuit might just be successful. But the Binion family privately held Binion’s. And maybe they were not being too risky, because the publicity they received for paying off a bet like that was also worth a whole lot of money. Actually, the same man came back and later bet $1,000,000 and lost. So in the long run, it had been good business. Three months later the man committed suicide. He was broke, but the police said he had romantic problems, too.
I did a few shots for the PBS show “Going Places: Las Vegas.” When we went into a casino on the Strip, people were crowding the cameras, waving their hands and calling out “Hi, Mom” and the like. But when we went into the Horseshoe, we shot an interview with the poker pit directly behind us. The producers did not have to make a double take, nor did they have to wait for the place to be quiet or for a distracting guest to move on. We shot the interview and not one single bettor even lifted his eyes to observe the network cameras. The bettors were more interested in the action on the table. On the Strip, the action might have been a television camera; in the Horseshoe, the action was the next card being dealt. Over the decades that Benny Binion reigned as the cowboy gambler, and when he and his wife and sons ran the casino, other gambling entrepreneurs came to Binion’s when they wanted to gamble. It was their local casino. Called the “most popular gambler” in the United States, Binion was especially popular with his fellow casino owners. He did not cater to tourists, except the hard-core gambling kind. He had no show, no music, and no two-for-one “fun book.” He did not have people out in the streets hawking the wares, trying to get the sucker in the door. His players were not suckers. He gave the best odds on the table games, offering all the options in blackjack and giving ten times odds for even bets at craps. His machines were programmed to give the largest payouts in Las Vegas—and Las Vegas gives the best payouts of any gambling city in the world.
Benny Binion’s one concession to the tourists was a plastic-covered horseshoe display of one million dollars in cash; he had mounted 100 ten-thousand-dollar bills. He invited the public to come in and look and to have their picture taken with the money at no cost. When I saw that, my head began to spin numbers around, figuring that he was losing a couple hundred dollars a day just in the interest the money could be earning in a bank. But then, maybe the money was in a bank, and maybe he could not be earning the interest. The Nevada gambling regulators demand that large casinos have several millions of dollars on hand at all times in order to cover any large win that a player (perhaps with a suitcase) may have at any moment. Las Vegas builds its reputation on paying off, and the reputation could disappear quickly if there was a pattern of casinos making players wait until the “other” banks opened before they got their money. After all, when the player loses, the casino takes the money right away (well, there are credit gamblers too). The million on display may just have been part of the cage requirement, and Binion would also have been out the interest if he had had the money locked in a vault. Moreover, with the extra security (and the money was well guarded) of having the displayed million dollars, other casinos could always count on Binion’s having surplus funds. When other casinos hit a run of bad luck and their reserves fell below what the law requires, very often they would send a special security detail up to the Horseshoe to borrow a million or two, just to tide them over until the “other” banks opened. Rumor has it that Steve Wynn, as the executive of the Golden Nugget across the street from the Horseshoe, had to do just that.
Benny Binion was born in Pilot Point, Grayson County, Texas, in 1904. When he was fifteen years old, he dropped out of school and ran away, first to El Paso and then to Dallas. He got a job in the St. George Hotel, and there he learned about gambling. When in his later years he was asked if he would do it again, he said yes, he would have had to become a gambler: “What else could an uneducated person do?” Dallas was a wide-open town, a place of opportunity. At age twenty-two, Benny opened a casino game at the Southland Hotel, and two years later he established a leadership role in the Dallas numbers games. Things in Dallas were rough, and the competition could be tough. Although the government tolerated games for a price (he paid ten dollars a gambler to the politicians in order to stay open), others wanted him closed. In two separate instances he was in gun battles over just who would stay open; he survived. Two others died and were never able to spin the wheels of fortune again. One of those times Binion received a suspended sentence; he was acquitted on grounds of self-defense the other time. During World War II he bought a casino in Fort Worth, but its time was limited. There was a crackdown on Texas gambling after the war. There had been twenty-seven casinos in the Dallas area during the war, and some felt they could stay and try to ride it out until another election could bring the right people to office. Binion did not; he packed up his family in 1946 and went to Las Vegas.
In Las Vegas, Benny Binion opened a casino on Fremont Street along with Kell Houssels, a man who was actively involved in many casinos. As time went on, however, Binion felt that he was being restricted on doing things the way he wanted to do things. Houssells did not like the idea of allowing the players to have high limits. Some professional operators figure that with high limits, the players can use a system called the Martingale, which allows them to keep doubling their bets when they lose, and eventually they will win. But Binion knew (and it was a risk as to when) that streaks or runs of a wheel on black or red, odd or even very often can go five, six, seven, or more in length. Increasing the odds only allows one or two more bets against a fate of losing.
Binion broke up the partnership, and in 1951 he bought the Apache Hotel, renaming it Binion’s Horseshoe. His limits became the highest limits in town. On one occasion the Mob leaders at the Flamingo did persuade Binion that he should not try to compete with them too vigorously, and Binion lowered his keno limit for a while.
Binion’s problems with the law did not end when he came to Las Vegas. In the mid-1950s, he was convicted of income tax evasion and served forty-two months in a federal prison. When he was released in 1957, the state of Nevada suspended his casino license, and management of the Horseshoe was given to his wife and his son Jack. Jack carried on the tradition of Benny Binion when he established the World Series of Poker in 1969. The tournament has grown considerably since that time. All players must put up $10,000 to enter. The winner collects a million dollars. Amateurs from every corner of the globe come to compete with the most professional of all gamblers. I was in Birmingham, England, touring casinos, when I came upon the Rainbow. There I found a big sign and a program for Binion’s World Series. The casino ran the British Poker Championship, and the first prize was an all-expense paid trip to Las Vegas with the stakes to enter Binion’s World Series.
On 1 June 1988, the Horseshoe empire spread out a bit, and the Binion family purchased the next-door Mint Casino from the Del Webb estate for $27 million. The Horseshoe casino expanded its gambling area and also gained 300 hotel rooms. Previously, the Horseshoe had fewer than 100 rooms. The Horseshoe also took over the restaurant at the top of the Mint, and it became the Steakhouse. There the finest beef, nurtured on Binion’s Montana ranch, was served. The casino was also able to expand its complimentary services with the larger facility. Over one-million-dollars worth of free food was given to selected players each month. Rarely did the casino charge a full price room rate. Most rooms were frequently occupied by very good players.
On Christmas Day 1989, Benny Binion went on to “cowboy heaven,” and he left his family in charge of the gambling on Fremont Street. Jack Binion, who was born in 1937, carried on. He also branched out, establishing the number-one riverboat casino in Louisiana and then the number-one revenue-producing casino in Tunica, Mississippi. He has since become a partner in an Illinois riverboat. Family fights consumed the business after Benny’s wife, Teddy, died in 1994. Jack’s brother, Ted, was involved with substance abuse problems and lost his casino license. He later died suspiciously, murdered by a former girl friend and her new boyfriend, who were seeking Ted’s wealth. According to the Las Vegas Review Journal of 20 May 2000, the couple was tried and convicted of the murder in 2000. Two sisters fought Jack over control of the casino, and finally Jack sold the property to one of his sisters and devoted his full attention to gambling interests in the Mississippi Valley. The legend of the “cowboy gambler” is still found in Las Vegas under the canopy of the Fremont Street Experience.
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