On This Day: Governor signs bill legalizing gambling in Nevada - March 19, 1931
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NEVADA MARKS 90TH ANNIVERSARY OF LEGAL GAMBLING
MOBSTERS PLAYED CRITICAL ROLE IN GROWTH OF SILVER STATE’S DOMINANT INDUSTRY
Published: March 19th, 2021
When Governor Fred Balzar signed Assembly Bill 98 on March 19, 1931, few Nevadans could have foreseen the long-term significance of what had occurred. The Las Vegas Evening Review-Journal surely didn’t, as news of the bill signing earned one short paragraph at the bottom of the front page the following day.
The newspaper’s killjoy prediction proved to be more accurate in the short run. The transformation of Las Vegas from dusty railroad town to American Monte Carlo was delayed, at least in part, by the Great Depression. While Las Vegas was doing better economically than many other communities across the country thanks to Hoover Dam construction, the banks that hadn’t gone under were not exactly handing out loans to build bigger betting palaces, especially considering that gambling was still considered a sin in wide swaths of the country.
Even in Las Vegas, there was some reluctance to fully embrace gambling. The first city ordinance outlining casino licensing fees and regulations required that “all glass doors to gambling establishments and abutting on streets or alleys must be opaque or curtained to shield the interior from view by passers-by,” according to the Review-Journal.
Most of the licensed casinos crowded along the west end of Fremont Street. There was no vision, in those early days, that the city could attract millions of tourists by building casino resorts with showrooms, buffets, swimming pools and horse stables. That discovery would come a decade later.
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https://themobmuseum.org/blog/nevada-marks-90th-anniversary-of-legal-gambling/
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During the Great Depression in the United States, Nevada legalized gambling—terming it "gaming"—in 1931; (the Northern Club received the first license). At the time, the leading proponents of gambling expected that it would be a short term fix until the state's economic base widened to include less cyclical industries. However, re-outlawing gambling has never been seriously considered since, and the industry has become Nevada's primary source of revenue today. Gambling taxes account for 34% of state revenue.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Nevada#Twentieth_century
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History of Las Vegas
1930–1941: Hoover Dam and the first casinos
On July 3, 1930, President Herbert Hoover signed the appropriation bill for the Boulder Dam. The dam was renamed the Hoover Dam during the Truman administration. Work started on the dam in 1931 and Las Vegas' population swelled from around 5,000 citizens to 25,000, with most of the newcomers looking for a job building the dam. However, the demographic of the work force consisting of males from across the country with no attachment to the area created a market for large-scale entertainment. A combination of local Las Vegas business owners and Mafia crime lords helped develop the casinos and showgirl theaters to entertain the largely male dam construction workers.
Despite the influx of known crime figures, the local business community tried to cast Las Vegas in a respectable light when the Secretary of the Interior Ray Lyman Wilbur visited in 1929 to inspect the dam site. However a worker was found with alcohol on his breath (this was during the time of Prohibition) after a visit to Block 16 in Las Vegas. The government ultimately decided that a federally controlled town, Boulder City, would be erected for the dam workers.
Realizing that gambling would be profitable for local business, the Nevada state legislature legalized gambling at the local level in 1931. Las Vegas, with a small but already well-established illegal gambling industry, was poised to begin its rise as the gaming capital of the world. The county issued the first gambling license in 1931 to the Northern Club, and soon other casinos were licensed on Fremont Street, such as the Las Vegas Club and the Hotel Apache. Fremont Street became the first paved street in Las Vegas and received the city's first traffic light in 1931.
In reply, the federal government restricted movement of the dam workers to Las Vegas. Smuggling and circuitous routes then were developed. In 1934, to curtail these activities and the resulting growth of criminal figures in the gambling industry, the city's leading figures purged gambling dens and started an effort to stem the flow of workers from the dam. This only emboldened some dam workers who still contrived to visit Las Vegas. A celebration of this era has become known as Helldorado Days.
Although the suppression efforts resulted in declines at gambling venues and resulted in a business downturn, the city was recharged—both literally and figuratively—when the dam was completed in 1935. In 1937, Southern Nevada Power became the first utility to supply power from the dam, and Las Vegas was its first customer. Electricity flowed into Las Vegas, and Fremont Street became known as Glitter Gulch due to the many bright lights powered by electricity from the Hoover Dam. Meanwhile, although the dam worker population disappeared, the Hoover Dam and its reservoir Lake Mead turned into tourist attractions on their own and the need for additional higher-class hotels became clear.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Las_Vegas
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