Next door to Barney’s at Lake Tahoe was Harrah’s Sports Casino. I walked in and was surprised by how small it was. There were about a dozen chairs for a keno game, several TVs by the bar, a craps game, and half a dozen blackjack tables. They had little yellow signs with $1 to $100 … Read more
Park Tahoe 1978 Post Card above is copyright RTSI The Park Tahoe, 1978, what an excellent location for a casino. The Park operated for a couple of years before becoming Caesar’s Tahoe, when management found they could not run the property profitably. When I arrived, I didn’t care about the casino names or what they … Read more
So, what exactly is the scoop here, you might ask? I would have to say that I have sold out. I’ve been busy working a regular job and ignoring my blog, my articles, my books, and blah, blah, blah. Now, if you want to know about Lake Tahoe, well, I’ve got nothing for you but … Read more
I love this photo of the Ta-Neva-Ho. Taken in the late 1930s, it shows what Lake Tahoe is like every winter – snowy! No kidding, right? Well, not everybody has a chance to see the amazing lake that straddles the California-Nevada state line. This club, built and opened in 1937, stands along the North Shore … Read more
You might recognize figures like these – amazing old-west wood-carvings with slot machines from the 1950s. Not that you are that old, but hey, they’ve been around since then. You can still see them in some vintage settings like Virginia City, NV (near Reno). In the late 1940s, Frank Polk began carving the first of … Read more
I’ve been cleaning out the closets – opening boxes and sifting through a lot of old papers. Having collected casino items for thirty years now, you can imagine that I’ve met a lot of people in the hobby. Some of them I met at collector shows, like the one the Chip Collectors Club (CC>CC) puts … Read more
I saved my first casino chip in 1978. Although I wasn’t old enough to legally play poker at the Pacheco Inn (now the California Grand), I managed to get away with a few hours of lowball to start my playing career. I lost. I didn’t go home completely empty-handed, because, from the $20 in chips … Read more