Question of the Day - 01 May 2023

Though Ann Meyers is certainly a colorful character and has a long history in the casino business, she wasn’t the first Nevada women to be a casino owner. Off by 11 years.

That honor goes to Claudine Williams, who bought the Silver Slipper in 1965 (in tandem with her husband Shelby) and ran it until 1969. That was when Howard Hughes got fed up with the glittery footwear icon atop the casino marquee, whose reflection was keeping him up at night. He made the Williams couple an offer they couldn’t refuse and the Silver Slipper became his.

Ann Sipi Meyers was born in 1943 in Croatia. She became the first solo female owner of a Nevada hotel when she bought the Casbah Hotel & Casino, located at First and Lewis streets downtown, an impulse purchase she consummated over two days in 1976.

Meyers was a self-made motel tycoon, having done undergraduate studies at Kent State University and Ohio State, then working as a bank teller and later as head interior decorator for Schottenstein’s Department Stores in Columbus. She also gained a pilot’s license and learned to ski, scuba dive, and ballroom dance.

Even back in '76, the 13-year-old Casbah had a rough reputation. Meyers later recalled, “I had no idea it was 'hooker haven.' I had never met a hooker before in my life. And it was extremely difficult for me to cope with, especially considering I had two little girls and no more money. I had to move into the place. I had no money to go anywhere else. Everyone assumed that I came along with that reputation, which was really hard to handle. I worked ten to twelve hours every day.” 

This eventually led Meyers to rebrand it as Ann Meyers' Queen of Hearts in 1990. She also bought the nearby and comparably seedy Nevada Hotel in 1992.

During her Casbah years she headed the Downtown Progress Association. The Neon Museum records, “One day you’d find her mingling with the famed well-to-do elites of [Las Vegas] and the next she’d be repairing the roof of her own hotel in six-inch heels and a gorgeous pantsuit.”

Meyers moved out of the Queen of Hearts in 1992 and its troubles escalated considerably. Between 1994 and ’95, Las Vegas police were called to the scene 680 times, once for a drive-by shooting. Proximity to the comparably dodgy Greyhound bus terminal and the Clark County Detention Center didn't exactly help. 

In 1999, according to the Las Vegas Sun, Meyers “was arrested allegedly trying to stow away on an airliner bound to Las Vegas from Atlanta.” She defended herself by saying she had accidentally boarded the wrong plane while sick. (She was found in the airplane bathroom and busted.) Nevada regulators were unmoved and didn’t renew her gaming license. Out went the 16 slot machines from the Queen of Hearts. 

Stowing away on an airplane might seem insufficient grounds for taking away a casino license, but Meyers had a reputation for being economical with the truth, not maintaining enough cash in the casino cage and not keeping the place insured. Said then-Nevada Gaming Control Board Chairman Steve DuCharme, "We've been visiting with you for eight years and we've seen you do a lot of strange things. You've not been candid with us.” Echoed then-Board member Bobby Siller, "That lack of candor here in this room really concerns me.”

Meyers managed to hang on to the two properties until 2004, when she sold them for $7 million to Barrick Gaming, a front for European absentee landlord Tamares Group. Tamares sold the now-shuttered motels to the City of Las Vegas in 2010. They made way for downtown redevelopment, becoming part of the site for the new City Hall complex. 

Meyers didn’t have any regrets when the Queen of Hearts came down, telling a Sun reporter, "It's time for something new. It was so rundown. It was so expensive to keep up. And it was so difficult. I'm happy that the city is going to get it and build a beautiful new structure." She was on hand for the sparsely attended demolition, still looking glamorous, unlike her former motel.

Meyers and Claudine Williams have one other thing in common: Both the marquee for the Queen of Hearts and the shoe from the Silver Slipper currently repose at the Neon Museum.

Ann Meyers, to the best of our knowledge, at 80 years old is no longer involved in the casino business.