Today, QoD is breaking with the usual protocol and is posing a question ... to itself! Why, you may ask? Because no one else, to date, has been able to answer it and we crave the truth.
Here's the deal: Of late, piano man Liberace has been hitting the headlines fairly frequently, what with the Michael Douglas HBO biopic, the news of his reincarnation (via hologram), and the sale and refurbishing of the famous Las Vegas mansion. It was in connection with the latter that we came across what turned out to be an oft-repeated, but never-substantiated, throwaway line about said house and how "this opulent residence became a haven for the visiting rich and famous, holding one of only three private gaming licenses in the state. The other two were held by Frank Sinatra and Howard Hughes."
Our immediate reaction upon reading this was: "What?!" Liberace, Frank Sinatra, and Howard Hughes each had a private casino? How was this possible, and how had we never heard about it before?
The reason for our utter surprise and incredulity in the face of this claim was the fact that when gambling was re-legalized in Nevada, back in 1931, it was on condition that the gaming would be "wide open," in other words open to all (of the requisite age) and always conducted in public, out in the open, where it could be under regulatory scrutiny to avoid any funny business--on either side of the tables. Interestingly, this was a 180-degree change of position from when gambling had been grudgingly legalized once before, back in 1869, when the attitude was that the evils of card games and dice should definitely not be on public display, where they might corrupt the innocent. Hence, back then it was specified that gaming should all be in back rooms, hidden out of sight, and that "The licensee shall not carry on his game in any front room on the first or ground floor of any building." (See QoD 8/16/2005)
Returning to the 20th century, to the best of our knowledge that 1931 law had not been substantially revised or revisited in any significant way until 2001, when some of the larger Strip casinos successfully lobbied Nevada's gaming regulators for a waiver that would permit gambling in secluded "international gaming salons" -- basically private rooms -- in a bid to woo back publicity-shy high rollers who were favoring other gaming jurisdictions, both domestically and abroad, on account of the less restrictive environments that permitted them to gamble away from the public gaze.
It's another topic we've covered in depth in the past (see QoD 12/25/05, 2/25/2014, and 9/9/14) and at no point were we made aware of the prior existence of any such salons privés, whether in a casino or a private residence, which accounts for our utter surprise upon reading that apparently, decades ago, several prominent Las Vegas personalities had already privately negotiated the exact same thing!
Our curiosity now seriously piqued, we reached out both to the History Department at UNLV and to its Center for Gaming Research. In the first instance, we totally struck out, while the most we were able to glean from Director of Gaming Research, Dave Schwartz (who knows a thing or two about gambling history), was that he'd "never heard this." He went on to confirm that, "Sinatra was licensed as an owner of the Sands and Cal-Neva but, as you know, that didn't work out. The HBO Liberace movie had Lee's mom playing a slot machine in his house, but I don't know if he had a license for the machine."
According to The Haunting of Las Vegas by Janice Oberding (2008), a possibly less-reliable source from our point of view, but one evidently consulted by the HBO writers, he did:
"Across from the master bedroom,, writes Oberding, was his mother's bedroom. No expense was spared when it came to mama, either. With a walk-in closet that could easily house the entire wardrobe of a Hollywood screen star, the room is ordinary by comparison. Mama preferred the slot machines to lavish surroundings. When she became so old that Liberace worried for her safety and comfort, he did what any doting son would do. He applied for, and received, one of only two* private gambling licenses in the state of Nevada. Thus duly licensed, he purchased a slot machine for mama's enjoyment and had it installed in the Shirley Street home. There she could wile away the hours in the comfort of her favorite son's home."
[*Ed: We're down to only two now? So, who's was it, Frank's or Howard's?!]
With the plot evidently thickening, we contacted the Gaming Control Board to see if they could shed any light on this mystery. As is our customary experience, Gaming was very willing to help, but having been passed from one department to the next in search of any evidence of this mythical gaming license, we appeared once more to have hit a stone wall. The very helpful lady we corresponded with in the Records & Research Department in Carson City dug around on our behalf, before responding as follows:
"I have looked into our records in regards to Liberace, Hughes, and Sinatra and a private gaming license. Unfortunately, we do not have any records in regards to their licenses. It appears that these licenses would have been given out before the Gaming Board was regulating gaming. If there are any records about their licenses, the county should have them, because they were the ones issuing licenses during that time."
QoD is nothing if not persistent, so next we naturally reached out to Clark County Library, where the initial feedback was cheerful, but not too promising: "Thank you for writing. Golly, I'd have directed you to the Gaming Control Board! It's not likely that we'd have anything they don't have. You may want to check with the Center for Gaming Research, at UNLV. They may or may not have the information, but they're your best bet."
Noooooo! At this juncture, you are our best, and possibly only bet, we responded, seemingly to no avail. Undaunted, however, we continued to sleuth away on our own (we have a tendency to border on the obsessive, we've been told), which entailed combing through the fine print of the particular Nevada Revised Statute that relates to gaming licenses and the procurement thereof. Here's the only potentially relevant excerpt we came across:
NRS 463.160 Licenses required; unlawful to permit certain gaming activities to be conducted without license; exceptions; separate license required for each location where operation of race book or sports pool conducted.
4. The Commission may, by regulation, authorize a person to own or lease gaming devices for the limited purpose of display or use in the person’s private residence without procuring a state gaming license.
Bingo! Maybe? Does this mean that anyone can apply to have a private casino in their front room -- a "residential gaming license," as one Liberace article we read describes it -- even if, in reality, you need to be the equivalent of a Liberace, or a Sinatra, or a Howard Hughes, for there be any remote possibility of the "powers that be" consenting to such a request? We're still not sure...
Then, just as all hope of finding an answer was fading, we received a follow-up email from the same lovely Las Vegas-Clark County Library District representative:
"I went back to The Sun newspaper and an article from 1996, and it looks like the rumor originated with Liberace's housekeeper - Gladys... (just a sec...) Gladys Luckie. You could cite that article and person as the source of the unverified story..."
Aha! Well, if we don't have the truth, at least now we have someone to blame. (Note to self: NEVER trust the housekeeper!]
Here's what Ms. Luckie, who apparently was referred to as, and treated like a second mother by Liberace, had to say in that article with regard to the "Playroom":
Luckie's favorite room in the house, the blue-hued game room, was adjacent to the salon.
At the time, Liberace held one of only three private gaming licenses in the state (Frank Sinatra and Howard Hughes had the others) and brought in a slew of slots and table games.
'His mother loved to play the slots,' Luckie says. Once, "She had hit the three 7s, which was $600, but there was no money in (the machine). She said, "Go get Lee," and told him, "Write me a check right now. I just won that money." He gave it to her.
This final piece of the puzzle would seem to indicate that it was merely a recreational slot machine that Mama Liberace (who sounds like a piece of work!) was playing and, with no actual "gambling" involved, we can see why there's no trace of Liberace's mythical "residential gaming license," since under these circumstances, in this state he absolutely would not need one for a purely recreational machine (regardless of what "mama" expected), and Gladys' account is the only one in which we've read reference to hordes of the rich and famous allegedly descending on Shirley Street for some secret blackjack or roulette action.
To conclude, we feel one-third satisfied, sort of, but if anyone out there has any knowledge of Sinatra (did Frank ever ask permission for anything?) and/or Hughes and their alleged "home casinos," do please drop us a line and put QoD out of its lingering misery.
