Question of the Day - 23 June 2007

The Binion's Million Dollar display consisted of a hundred $10,000 gold-certificate bills in a horseshoe-shaped case protected on both sides with thick Plexiglas. The display was located in the rear lobby, at the top of the coffee-shop staircase.

There were two incarnations of it. The first, which went up in 1954, used uncirculated bills in numerical sequence. It lasted five years, till Benny Binion needed the money; he took down the display and cashed the bills. (The story goes that Binion called up an armored Brinks truck to transport the bills to the bank, then sent dummy bills with the truck and carried the real ones to the bank in his cowboy boots.)

In 1964, Binion decided to revive the display. He searched high and low and eventually came up with a hundred new $10,000 bills. These bills were rarely obtained by the general public, being used primarily for interbank settlements. (Their distribution ended in 1969, when the Treasury Department began removing them from circulation. The 1964 display stood for 35 years.)

From practically the very beginning of the first display, a photographer snapped free souvenir photos of visitors in front of the million bucks. Over the years, more than five million people had their pictures taken in front of the display; in fact, many recorded their various trips to downtown Las Vegas over five decades with separate photos.

In December 1999, then-Horseshoe owner Becky Behnen, daughter of Benny Binion who died in 1989, quietly sold the display to an unnamed private collector. At the time, it was the largest single collection of $10,000 bills in existence; in fact, only 340 $10,000 bills remained in circulation, so the Binion's display accounted for nearly 30% of the bills in circulation.

It's unknown how much was paid, but in 1999, according to experts, uncirculated $10,000 bills were going for about $75,000 apiece. However, it's doubtful that the Binion bills fetched quite that much, due to the 35-year-old glue used to hold them in the display case. It's believed the 100 bills, together, were sold for between $2 million and $2.5 million.

Binion’s has unveiled a new million-dollar display in an acrylic pyramid atop a poker table in the center of the casino. The new display consists of $270,000 in $100 bills, $688,000 in $20 bills, and $42,000 in $1 bills. A Binion’s spokesman said that restoring the original display of one-hundred $10,000 bills would have cost $16 million or more (recently, one of the original $10,000 bills was selling on the eBay for $160,000). The cash is viewable from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily; during off hours it's locked under a stainless-steel shell. In the days of the original Binion's million, you could simply get your photo taken with the cash for free. Getting your photo taken with the display isn't quite as easy as it was with the original, but it could be slightly more profitable. Though we haven't tested it, the wording is "Guests who join Club Binion's receive $25 in slot play or table-game non-negotiable chips for just $20 plus a free photo with the $1 million." By the letter of this release, you can get a photo for joining the players club and paying $20 for $25 in casino play. Since we don't yet know the nature of the table-game play (ie, single-play or play-till-you-lose), the safest route is to choose the free slot play.You'll have to run the $25 through once, which means an expected loss of less than $2 (varying according to what slot or video poker machine you choose), which means an expected profit of about $3. Of course, you could easily lose (or win more) money on the play.