Not quite, but almost.
Back in 1966, much to the chagrin of then Nevada Attorney General Harvey Dickerson, and numerous others, the Silver Nugget in North Las Vegas announced a plan to introduce topless blackjack dealers. In an April interview with the press, Dickerson disclosed that his office had received several complaints from existing dealers at the property, who said they’d been told they risked losing their jobs if they weren’t prepared to disrobe. To this, the assistant general manager of the casino replied, "No comment," while the then chairman of the Nevada Gaming Commission responded with "I don’t know, I don’t know" when questioned on the legality/appropriateness of the move.
While we’ve read a couple of reminiscences from old-time residents or visitors who recalled "topless blackjack" at the Silver Nugget, from what we can tell, in order to avoid Dickerson’s threatened high court injunction, the casino compromised and clad its sexy new dealers in pasties, with transparent shirts over the top, so they weren’t actually topless (see image below). We’re not sure how long this experiment lasted, but it appears to have been short-lived. Here's the official caption to the photograph as it originally appeared on April 16, 1966:
Black jack dealers Dianne McMillin, (L) and Jaye Boack work in the pit at the Silver Nugget Casino here, wearing costumes with see-through tops. The management brought the girls on during the 1 to 8 A.M. shift, contending they were not topless, (they have on chiffon transparent tops with pasties underneath), and therefore should not cause any objections from the gaming commission or the Attorney General, who earlier said he would go to court for an injunction against them.
Then there was the Center Fold Casino, which operated from 1975 to '77 in the lot at the corner of Sahara and the Strip where the Bonanza Gift Store still resides, and which subsequently became the Jolly Trolley and remained in business until 1981. Aside from being a former butcher shop and a notorious grind joint, in both incarnations this casino's principal claim to fame was for being the only casino in Las Vegas, to date, with a bona fide strip club inside.
Advertized on the marquee as "Naked But Nice," the burlesque show featured a succession of strippers on a stage at the edge of the pit, dancing to raunchy popular music, with a lineup that would sometimes include fairly well-known strippers and porn stars from the era, including Dusty Summers and Marilyn Chambers. Other featured acts included the Fantasy Follies and the Loose Caboose Comedy Players.
Initially, the burlesque performance was a free show for all casino players to enjoy, but at some point a curtain was put around what became known as the Loose Caboose stage, and a $3 fee to watch was introduced (Kill Phil author Blair Rodman recalls sneaking peaks through the curtains when he was a young new arrival in town.) In the early '80s there was trouble with mobsters from New Jersey trying to infiltrate the joint, and it closed shortly thereafter, ending Las Vegas' brief experiment with casino nudity.
Fast forward to 2003, when the Rio introduced the first of Las Vegas' "bikini blackjack" pits, dealing a horrible single-deck game that paid even money on naturals and limited doubling to 10 and 11. That was then, and today the city is awash with "party pits", often still dealing bad games, but apparently that's meant to be compensated for by the scantily clad dealers who will regularly pause the game to entertain with some go-go or pole dancing moves.
In 2008, Penthouse magazine briefly posited a plan for a Penthouse-themed hotel-casino in Las Vegas that would have featured semi-naked or even fully-nude dealers, but that plan was abandoned before anyone bothered to find out if it was even legal, as far as we can tell, and the former Penthouse strip club offered nothing raunchier than free Monday Night Poker Tournaments before it transformed into what's now Crazy Horse III. (We read an account online of topless blackjack being dealt at Penthouse, but we doubt the club had the requisite gaming license and the writer was probably confusing blackjack with poker. If anyone out there knows to the contrary, please drop us a line.)
Sapphire topless club also hosted a series of "strip poker" tournaments in 2011, with well-known poker players like Todd Brunson and Gavin Smith taking part. Each was teamed with a dancer from the club, who'd remove an item of clothing if her player lost a pot. You can view some excerpts from these events on YouTube.
These days, the closest you'll find to a topless casino is the pool at Wynn, which offers poolside blackjack and European-style sunbathing for guests (the dealers remain clothed). The Golden Nugget is the only other pool we're aware of that offers topless sunbathing (just a few spots on the upper pool deck) and poolside gambling, but the two are nowhere near each other.
(L-R, pictures appear courtesy of: Bettman/Corbis; john-uk.com/LasVegasHistory/LVHISTORY.html; MGM Mirage and Caesars Ent.; and Stratosphere.)
