ONCE UPON A TIME there was a Texan who knew a thing or two about horse-trading, Moonshining, concealed weapons, murder cowboy-style and gambling. He laid his claim on Fremont Street and changed the face of Western hospitality.

Lester Ben (Benny) Binion was born in 1904 in Grayson County, Texas, 60 miles north of Dallas. He was seriously ill as a child. His parents decided to let him accompany his father on vast open statewide journeys as a horse-trader. They hoped the outdoor life would restore his health. It did, but Benny never got around to attending school. In fact, in all his days, Benny Binion never received any formal schooling. He got his education on the road, running errands for gamblers, steering customers to clandestine gambling joints, and making money on the side bootlegging. Benny became skilled at horse-trading and gambling in the campgrounds where traders gathered awaiting market days. “Everybody had his little way of doing something to the cards,” he once said. “I wasn’t too long on wisin’ up to that. Some of ‘em had different ways of markin’ ‘em, crimpin’ ‘em... There was fellows that had what they call ‘daub’ they put on dice. And you could roll the dice on a layout and this daub caused the dice to hesitate, slow down and turn up on their number. ...I never did learn how to do any of these tricks like cheat people, which I’m kind of proud of now. But I was always pretty capable about keeping from getting cheated.”

When Benny Binion turned eighteen years of age he moved to El Paso, where he refined his skills at bootlegging. In the 1930’s he was convicted twice for peddling illegal hooch and once promised the judge that he would get out of the liquor business if he didn’t send him to prison. The judge cooperated and Benny reciprocated. He gave up bootlegging and moved into the numbers game. It was the same illegal lottery that was common in all big cities before state governments co-opted it and declared the racket morally pure. The little boy had grown up and was now carrying three pistols: two .45 automatics and a pocket-sized .38 caliber revolver. It was difficult at that time to manage without them. The pistols were a serious argument in any quarrel.

By 1936, tolerance towards gaming moved into Texas. Benny began running crap games from several hotel rooms near to the Beaumont oilfield, the largest in the world at that time. Even though it was deep in the middle of the Great Depression, the money always flowed in Beaumont. The gambling opportunities attracted a rough crowd and it was tough to protect the games from hijackers. Although he was illiterate, Benny used mostly his brawn to muscle people around. Benny, of course, always carried his guns. At one time in his life, he would become a suspect in seven murders in Texas, but he never served any time behind bars. A few years before the oilfield days, Binion had killed a fellow bootlegger after an argument turned nasty; he thought the guy was going to stab him. For that he was convicted of first-degree murder, but got a 2-year suspended sentence because the dead man was known to be very violent and a killer. In September of 1936, Binion killed again. This time it was a rival numbers operator who pulled a gun on him and shot him in the armpit as Benny put his arm up in defense. Benny reportedly grabbed the man’s gun by the cylinder, so it wouldn’t turn anymore, and then pulled his own gun and shot back. Another version of the story has Benny and a henchman stalking the unarmed man and emptying their .45’s into him. Binion then allegedly shot himself in the shoulder and turned himself in to police, claiming that the victim had shot him first. In either case, Binion was indicted, but the charge was later dismissed on the grounds that Binion had acted in self-defense. The Grim Reaper lurked again in the shadow of Benny Binion. 1938 has him and his henchmen allegedly killing Sam Murray, another of Benny’s competitors in the gambling rackets. Binion was never indicted for this murder either, and charges were eventually dropped against his henchmen.

By the early 1940s, Benny Binion’s outlaw reputation grew. Binion had become the reigning mob boss of Dallas. He then sought to take over the gambling rackets in Fort Worth. The local mob boss of that city, Lewis Tindell, was murdered shortly afterwards. The culprits still remain unknown. The Chicago Mob made a successful move into Dallas after World War II. In the mid 1940’s, the sheriff, who Benny Binion supported, lost the local election. Binion lost his fix within the municipality. Without any political protection, he had to skip town. The violence began to escalate as well, and after many of his rivals died, it just became additional motivation to drive Binion into making the decision to move to Las Vegas. Most of his rivals were killed in a gang war …except one, Herbert Noble.

While still in Dallas, Binion had begun a long-running feud with Herb Noble, a small-time gambler. The feud continued after Binion moved to Las Vegas. Binion had demanded that Noble increase his payoff to him from 25 to 40 percent, which Noble refused to do. Binion posted a reward on Noble’s scalp that eventually reached $25,000, plus control of a Dallas crap game. Many tried to kill Noble in the past, but he escaped or survived numerous attempts, although sometimes with gunshot wounds. Tragically, Noble saw his wife blown up by a car bomb intended for him. He believed Binion was behind it. In retaliation, Noble made several attempts to get rid of Binion, fortunately or unfortunately, he failed. In his final endeavor, Noble planned to rig his private plane with bombs and to fly to Las Vegas so he could drop them on Binion’s house. However, he was restrained by local law enforcement before he could execute his plan. He was nabbed by police as he was loading the bombs onto his airplane. Later, in what might have been a re-retaliation, someone succeeded in assassinating Herbert Noble. He was killed by a bomb under his mailbox.

Benny Binion arrived in Las Vegas from Texas in 1946 in the same month that Bugsy Siegel opened the Flamingo Hotel and Casino. Binion became a partner in the Las Vegas Club, but soon clashed with the other partners over the casino’s betting limits. He disagreed with the stakes the club would allow gamblers to bet. Benny Binion believed that gamers should not be limited in the amount they were willing to wager; if they were willing to put it to chance, the house should cover it. Four years later, he severed his ties with the partnership and purchased the El Dorado Casino which he renamed “The Horseshoe.” The infamous Apache Hotel that sat on top of the casino was acquired as well and became a part of the establishment.

Two momentous events occurred in Las Vegas in 1951: atom bomb testing began at the Nevada Test Site, 60 miles north of Sin City, and the face of gaming changed forever when big time gambling began with the opening of Binion’s Horseshoe Casino. It was a small casino on Fremont Street, which he owned in partnership with his friend J.K. Houssels. Binion had left the Las Vegas Club and founded his own casino because he was a man of ideas and he needed a free play. His old partners refused to increase the limit of the size of bets. The limit back then was only fifty dollars. When Benny opened his own casino, he raised the bet ceiling to five hundred. He knew his gamblers. Benny Binion noticed that most players use one strategy. If they win a ten dollar bet, they then bet the winning ten and their original ten dollars. The result? Playing at Binion’s Horseshoe could bring in $1,130 in gross gambling receipts, compared to $270 in other casinos. Raising the bet ceiling wasn’t the only innovation of Benny Binion’s. He was the first to put carpeting in a downtown casino, while others used sawdust as their floor covering of choice. He was also the first to have limousines pick up customers at the airport and bring them to his hotel casino. In like manner, he offered free drinks to slot machines players. When asked why he did these things, his reasons were simple, and he was heard to have replied, “If you wanta get rich, make little people feel like big people.”

Because of the nationwide publicity over the Binion/Noble feud, Benny Binion was unpopular with the national Mafia bosses who thought that he was drawing unwanted attention to their operations in Las Vegas and Dallas. After one of Binion’s bodyguards committed a murder in the men’s room of the Westerner Club in Las Vegas, the mobsters helped the federal government put Binion away. In 1953 he was imprisoned, but not for his casino affairs. With charges as transparent as cellophane, Benny ran into some tax problems with the government. He ended up spending three and one half years at Leavenworth federal penitentiary for tax evasion. He was forced to sell his stake in The Horseshoe. Binion also lost his gaming license. After that, Benny Binion never held a gambling license again. He was content with a payroll of a consultant. His family eventually reclaimed full ownership of The Horseshoe in the 1960’s and in 1964 Benny completely renovated it, which included adding the now recognizable neon façade. Although part of the charm of The Horseshoe was its intimate feel, it eventually had a difficult time competing with the bigger casinos in the decades to come. By the 1980’s, the newer mega-casinos on the Las Vegas Strip took a lot of business away from The Horseshoe and other downtown Fremont Street casinos. In order to expand, Benny acquired the Mint Casino next door, which also included a luxury tower hotel.

Poker became Benny Binion’s greatest legacy. Poker wasn’t a respectable game when Benny broke into the casino business. Many casinos didn’t offer it, because it was known back then as a “cheating game.” Another reason for its low popularity was that it wasn’t profitable for casinos—but not in Binion’s world. To compete in his casino, a player needed $10,000 to buy in. It was a rather big sum to attract both pros and suckers with hopes of becoming a Poker Legend. As Becky Binion Behnen would later recall about her father Benny, “He loved poker players and high stakes action. In his 85 years, he never encountered a bet too large to cover.” Poker had always been a major part of The Horseshoe’s history. At one time Benny hosted the big game between Nick (The Greek) Dandalos and Johnny Moss. The two played Five-card Stud heads up everyday for five months in the lobby in front of the public. After winning close to $4 million, Nick the Greek uttered his most famous words, “Mr. Moss, I must let you go.”
In 1970, Benny Binion started the World Series of Poker. There were only eight players in the inaugural event that was won by Amarillo Slim. Every year thereafter, the field would grow. Little did Benny know that in the upcoming decades, The Horseshoe would host the world’s most famous poker tournament. In 2004, his $10,000 World Series of Poker event had grown to a first place purse of over $5 million and with 2,576 contestants from around the world participating.

Benny died on Christmas Day in 1989 of heart failure at the age of 85. In life, Benny Binion was a man to be reckoned with, dealing out death when the victim’s demise was sometimes beneficial, and leaving a trail of enemies, only to die of natural causes at a ripe old age. The Horseshoe was a family-run operation and his children quickly took over. Benny had introduced his sons Jack and Ted into the business years prior. His wife also kept an eye on the books. His daughter Becky Behnen took control after his death. His oldest son Jack moved out to Mississippi to work on casinos in the East. His other son, Ted, was involved in a bizarre murder. The trial became a media circus. By 2004, Becky Behnen had allowed The Horseshoe to fall deeply into debt. The IRS closed the doors early that year. Harrah’s Entertainment purchased the bankrupt Binion’s Horseshoe and acquired the rights to the World Series of Poker. The doors reopened in April of 2004 a few weeks before the largest poker tournament in history would begin.

The Las Vegas we know today is, in part, due to the vision and hard work of Benny Binion. With the heart of a true Texas gambler, he took risks and chances that a lot of other businessmen would never consider. One has to wonder, that if Benny had never left Texas, perhaps Las Vegas never would have evolved into what it has become and we might never have heard of the World Series of Poker. Men and cities can be judged by their heroes and it tells something of Las Vegas that there are only two historic equestrian statues in the city. One is of Rafael Rivera, said to be the first white man to find the Las Vegas Valley and the other is Benny Binion, said to be the first to give gamblers a fair shot at winning big. For twenty years the bronze statue depicting Benny Binion, legendary Sin City pioneer and father of the World Series of Poker (WSOP), sitting atop a bronze horse, lariat at the ready, kept vigilant watch at the corner of Casino Center Boulevard and Ogden Avenue, until 2008, when it was moved into the equestrian center inside the lobby of the South Point Hotel and Casino at the southern end of the Strip. For many longtime residents, it was a deliberate attempt to cover up rough beginnings of Las Vegas—probably because the pistol-packing Binion was one of the innovators who changed the face of the casino industry. Sadly, the original bronze plaque was removed from the statue and Binion’s legacy is without honor or even mention at its new South Point residence. Although most visitors these days view his Horseshoe Casino (now renamed Binion’s Casino) as just another worn-down has-been joint, it was once very much state-of-the-art.

Opinions of Benny Binion were as varied as the number of people who knew him. “He was a real legend and he could be proud of that. But he wasn’t haughty,” Howard Shwartz (editor at Gambler’s Book Club) said about him. Schwartz added, “He was a guy you could shake hands with and feel you had met a real American character. That’s what made the place. It wasn’t the classiest joint in town, but it was an authentic and unique experience. When you met Benny Binion, you felt you’d been part of history.” Mobster Meyer Lansky once said, “Binion was a problem. I traveled to Texas to see for myself the fearless boss of the streets of Dallas and found a cross between John Wayne and Jesse James.” His friend and poker great “Amarillo Slim” Preston suggested as an epitaph, “He was either the gentlest bad guy or the baddest good guy you’d ever seen.” Benny Binion was posthumously inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 1990.

1951: Atom Bomb Testing
The publicity was thought to be good for the city and was celebrated with a parade and Miss Atomic Bomb - Lee Merlin wearing her mushroom cloud bathing suit.

Shockingly, the press was allowed such a close distance to detonation. The above ground tests stopped in 1962, because people in northeastern Nevada and southern Utah began complaining that their pets and livestock were suffering from beta particle burns and other ailments. All tests stopped by 1992.

“The Men Who Made Las Vegas” is a twelve-part series by Byron Craft, chronicling the growth of Sin City and the men who made it possible. SLV

Issue 58 featuring: Jade Bryce, Markesa Yeager & Taylor Vixen