Early Vegas GambLing & Sports Betting
Gaming, including sports betting, was legalized in Nevada in 1931, not that it wasn't going on beforehand.
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Nevada’s legalization of gambling in 1931 coincided with the beginning of construction on the Hoover Dam, which brought thousands of workers to Boulder City. On pay day, these workers would travel the roughly 25 miles to Las Vegas to enjoy gambling on Fremont Street, which was the downtown hub of Vegas before the Strip.
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Starting in 1938, people with experience running gambling businesses began to move to Las Vegas as a new mayor in Los Angeles cracked down on illegal gambling. One of the most influential was Guy McAfee, an LA cop on the vice squad who fled California to escape prosecution for running gambling and prostitution rings on the side.
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Another big turning point came in 1941, when the first combined hotel-casino, El Rancho Vegas, opened on a stretch of Highway 91 that McAfee later nicknamed “the Strip.” The El Rancho Vegas resort was important because it helped make gambling “something you could do on a vacation,” says David G. Schwartz, a gaming historian at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. “And that was very successful.”
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​​Benjamin Siegelbaum, commonly referred to as “Bugsy Siegel," a notorious mobster, was technically the first race disseminator in the state. One of the features of this service was race information (entries, odds, results) – otherwise known as the "Race Wire’." He played a crucial role in the development of modern Las Vegas. In 1946, he opened the Flamingo Hotel, one of the first luxury hotel-casinos on the Strip. Despite its initial financial struggles, the Flamingo set a new standard for future developments.
