Las Vegas Posters and Art Prints
Check out these Las Vegas Posters and Art Prints
by James Blakeway and other fine artists.
Check out the Las Vegas posters on this page. Vegas has changed
quite a bit in the last 20 years. Casinos have continued
developing on the south end of the strip going down
towards the airport. Some of the breathtaking casinos are
the Luxor, the MGM Grand, the Tropicana, the Venetian, New York New York,
the Monte Carlo, the Mirage, Caesar's Palace,
the Flamingo Hilton, the Bellagio and Circus Circus.
There are other casinos too numerous to mention here.
One of the best ways to visualize Vegas is to purchase
one of the posters that shows the bright lights and all the action.
The World Series of Poker travels from city to city but everything leads up
to the play at the Bellagio Casino in Las Vegas. I've been lucky enough
to play at the $4-$8 holdem tables at the Bellagion in Las Vegas.
I was able to make a little bit of money in the Bellagio card room playing
holdem on a recent trip. The poker profit helped to make up for some of the
money I lost playing blackjack. When I was younger I would focus on playing
blackjack in Vegas. This has shifted to poker because it is more stable
and the bankroll fluctuations are not as volatile. For example, playing
blackjack on the Vegas strip is nearly impossible unless you sit at a
table with at least a $10 minimum.
Playing for as little as 30 minutes can leave a player up or down $500
and this is at the low stakes tables. Poker is another story. If I play
$2-$4, $3-$6 or $4-$8 holdem I can usually play for hours and still
be within $100 of where I started. On my last Vegas trip I played poker
for a long time at the Bellagio and ended up being up about $20 in the end.
I also had a long session at the Palms Casino and I finished up about $10.
However on the same trip I lost $100 playing blackjack in a matter of minutes.
The blackjack loss came in spite of the fact that I know basic strategy
thoroughly. The problem with blackjack is that even a weekend trip
or several weekend trips are still part of the short run in the scheme of things
and we all know that anything can happen in the short run.
Gambling and Las Vegas History
I was watching High Rollers: A History of Gambling on the History Channel recently and it was fantastic.
Covering riverboat gambling first, the show discussed
the 3 card monte which is a sleight of hand game.
They say George Devol was the greatest, he had an inch thick skull for head-butting and he killed many opponents. George Devol never had a problem finding a game in spite of his notariety.
George Devol became known as the King of the Riverboat Gamblers.
William Jones or Canada Bill was George Devol's partner.
Faro was another popular game on riverboats.
The Robert E Lee became the fastest riverboat
but the faster riverboats were not good for gambling.
Eventually riverboat gamblers left for the gold-mining towns of the frontier.
One year after gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill, gambling flourished in San Francisco. California invented the modern casino. Everybody was allowed, rich or poor. Competition between casinos was intense so straight dealing became a priority. From China Town to Barbary Coast, the casinos flourished. Beautiful women urged gamblers to bet higher and more often. The Bella Union casino had the first lady dealer. Soon every casino had a woman dealer.
In 1854 the new Bella Union was opened in Nevada City. The lady dealer started growing a mustache that brought curious gamblers to the casino.
In San Francisco gambling was technically illegally but it still flourished. James King printed a campaign against the gambling epidemic. A farrow dealer was charged with murder and it was all over the press. King told gamblers, "remember Vicksburg" and he was then murdered by a rival newsperson. The gambling halls in San Francisco prospered until the end of the century.
Deadwood South Dakota attracted high rollers after the Civil War. Wyatt Earp, Doc Holiday and others had stops in Deadwood. Wild Bill Hickock was on top of many hit lists when he went to Deadwood. He never sat with his back to the door. HBO did a series about Deadwood. In 1876 Wild Bill wanted a game. Someone else was in his seat so he took another seat with his back to the door. Two Aces and Two Eights with a Nine were in his hand and this became knows as the Dead Man's hand.
Pittsburgh Phil revolutionized horse racing. He could remember everything that took place in a race. He would go from bookmaker to bookmaker once bet 100k man to man against an opponent. He seemed to know the probabilities like no one else. He bet the doctor 10k he would make it past 24 hours on his death bed. He reportedly lasted 24 1/2 hours and died with the doctor's check in hand.
Gates gambled huge amounts at Saratoga. JP Morgan and many society types were recoiled by his gambling tales. He once told folks you might as well stop the wind from blowing if you want to stop people from gambling. Moralists went after prostitution at the turn of the century to go after gambling. By 1910 horseracing gambling was outlawed. By the end of World War I horseracing resurfaced even though it was still illegal. They got around the laws creatively by making the bets verbally. Once gambling became illegal the underworld got involved. Having been involved with drugs and prostitution, it was easy for them to add gambling. Layoff betting was the answer for small-time bookies who needed to be covered in case of a loss. It required crossing state lines and having authorities look the other way through pay-offs.
In possibly the biggest fixing in history, there was a fix in the 1919 World Series. The White Sox were the best team and the most underpaid. Eight players approached a New England gambler to get 100k to be split among them if they lost the series on purpose. Sullivan approached Rothstein who then profited from it. Rothstein was then implicated with the players. All confessions mysteriously disappeared and the judge cleared Rothstein and the players. Rothstein was free but the damage to his rep caused him to be known as the man who fixed the World Series.
Nevada started to drop out of the national economy in 1930. They need to find ways to make money. In 1931 they decided to legalize gamblers. Some wrote that Nevada was being honest by making gambling legal. Guy McAffee from Los Angeles quit the force and moved to Las Vegas.
The Frontier, the Apache Club and the Boulder Club were soon built.
By 1945 1 billion dollars per year went through Las Vegas.
Bugsy Siegal saw Las Vegas as an opportunity.
Backed by East Cost money, Siegal built the Flamingo in Las Vegas.
The mob soon had their hand in many of the big hotels in Las Vegas.
The slot machine, invented in San Franciso a century earlier, was on its way to becoming one of the biggest Las Vegas Casino games ever. Honest dealing was an unspoken rule in Las Vegas because the Las Vegas casinos competed against each other and they couldn't risk their reputations.
Following World War II Las Vegas boomed like a western mining town. Between 1950 and 1958 over 100 atomic tests were performed. Folks could see the mushrooms from the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas.
Nick the Greek came to Las Vegas to test his luck. He had excelled in Canada in poker. Rothstein took Nick the Greek for 100k. Everybody wanted to see Nick the Greek play. He was nearing his 70s when he arrived in Las Vegas. He had wagered over 50 million dollars in his live and he usually did it with other people's money. He lost over 260k in borrowed money one evening. Nick the Greek died on Christmas day in 1966, money had to be collected to pay for his funeral.
The Sands started to be known as the best hotel in Las Vegas when the Rat Pack performed there. They even dealt hands in the casino once in awhile. They created an energy and a buzz like no other in Vegas. Gambling was celebrated as a viable form of entertainment. In just 30 years Las Vegas had transformed from a dusty 2 horse town to a huge center.
The federal government soon wanted more money from gambling. The 1940 Kentucky Derby was historical because of the machines used for tracking. Parimutuel betting allows bettors to bet against other bettors instead of against a bookmaker. The machines were a hit. All parties stood to gain. The state which regulates it can cut the pot from the top. One part goes to taxation, one part goes to owners, one part goes to profit. This machine re-established racing. Off track betting was still illegal. In 1950 organized crime was investigated. The investigation expanded to include the point spread in sports. The bettor has to bet $11 to win $10 with the built in commission. The bookmakers wanted even action on both side. Sports became more vulnerable to corruption. Unlike the 1919 World Series, with the spread a player could shave points and still win the game. Point shaving scandals were revealed including the powerhouse Kentucky team. Bookmakers frowned on fixed games because they were taking bets based on a line that they did not want interfered with.
Attorney General Robert Kennedy declared a war on crime with its connection to gambling. It became a federal crime to use a wire to cross a state line if it involved gambling. States were left to do regulation on their own. Gambling emerged stronger than ever after the hearings in the 1950s and 1960s. Team sports soon replaced horse racing as the number one form of gambling.
Jimmy the Greek had the perception of being a commercial handicapper. He set the spread between the Jets and the Colts in the superbowl. The spread was 17 points and Joe Namath predicted a win for his underdog team. Jimmy the Greek's line did not hold up. There was a lot of money on both sides and the Jets won the game decisively. It is pointed out that the goal of a line is to get equal action on both sides, not to predict the outcome of the game.
In 1974 the Las Vegas Stardust was purchased and Frank Lefty Rosenthal was placed in charge of operations. There was now a sports handicapper and bettor in Vegas. One of his first actions was to bring a sportsbook inside the Las Vegas Stardust Casino.
Holmes and Cooney was a huge fight for gambling. The smart money was on Holmes. Cooney apologized to the fans after the fight. He broke down and cried in his apology. Sports and gambling were separate entities that came together in an interesting way. The Las Vegas sportsbook brought new customers into the Las Vegas Casino. The Las Vegas Hilton has its own building for sports betting. Las Vegas Caesars now has its own wing for sports betting. Today sports wagering accounts for over 90 million in revenue per year for Las Vegas casinos.
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Las Vegas Scenes and Las Vegas Posters and Art Prints
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