John Davis is considered to be the first casino entrepreneur in the United States. But gambling was not the essential part of his life, as he was a patron of the arts. He was born in Santo Domingo (his date of birth is not known) and educated in French colleges, studying music and art. When he came to New Orleans his attention was on the arts. He gained much social prestige as he built the Theatre d’ Orleans where operatic performances were given. He also opened an exclusive ballroom. John Davis gave the raucous frontier community its culture.
John Davis associated with the “best” people of New Orleans, and when the opportunity to have a gambling hall arose, he sensed that his group of friends would not want to be playing games among the street hoi polloi in saloons and brothels. Therefore in 1827 he applied for a license for a different style of gambling hall, one that was not just an annex to a saloon. His emporium of games was located beside his ballroom on Orleans near Bourbon Street. Perhaps he anticipated the style of Steve Wynn’s Bellagio in Las Vegas, as the casino was carpeted; featured fine furniture, fine food, and the best of liquid refreshments; and was adorned with fine music and its walls lined with art works. The amenities—all the food, drink, and entertainment—were free to his valued customers. Perhaps he can be credited with inventing the “comp” (complimentary), at least in the United States. In a sense his casino was comparable to the best in Las Vegas, without the slot machines and without the masses of people wandering in and out. When he was given his license, his was the only exclusive hall for games. He only had to compete with the dives of New Orleans, that seem even today not to have gone away. As his upmarket clientele kept growing, he branched out and started a second casino in suburban Bayou St. John.
During the early 1830s, others attempted to imitate his establishments, but they fell short of his standards. His offerings were the most elegant of any gambling facility for decades to come. His “run”, however, was not a long one. In 1835, a reform movement—perhaps taking its cues from the antigambling mobs upriver in Vicksburg—pressured the city government to rescind all of the gambling licenses. Davis’s reaction was not to try to operate underground, nor was it to run off to another jurisdiction where he could seek accommodations with legal authorities. He was a social leader in New Orleans, and he was an operator of integrity. The classy John Davis was also a man of wealth. He merely closed the doors to his gambling operations, and he returned to a full-time pursuit as the city’s primary patron of the opera and the arts. For Davis gambling had always been the amenity.
|
|