Like other mobsters at the time, he moved to Las Vegas in the 1940s, where gambling was legal. But it was allowed to continue.”Įventually, officials began cracking down on gambling operations and Binion was run out of Dallas.

“Down in Galveston, the Maceo family had the Balinese room out on the pier, just over the water. “There was a casino out in Arlington called Top O’ Hill,” Swanson said.

Swanson said much like some Prohibition-era speakeasies, underground casino operators across Texas would pay off police. They operated with the cooperation of law enforcement.” “In the 1930s, Dallas was really a wide-open gambling place,” said Doug Swanson, a University of Pittsburgh professor and the author of “ Blood Aces: The Wild Ride of Benny Binion, the Texas Gangster who Created Vegas Poker.” “There were casinos operated by people like Benny Binion in downtown Dallas that were an open secret.

Binion faces income tax evasion charges in Texas. Benny Binion, former Dallas gambler, leaves a Las Vegas federal courtroom after pleading with the judge during an extradition hearing not to send him back to Texas on Nov.

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