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Gaming chips
He was a mule dealer and a horse trader; an admittedly lousy poker player and a bootlegger, although to hear him tell of it, he wasn't a very good one.
"I did some bootlegginU in Dallas. But I never did make no money bootleggin"," Lester "Benny" Binion said in an interview with the University of Nevada, Las Vegas oral history department.
"Every time I get ahold of any money, somethin'd happen, and I'd lose a bunch of whiskey or somethin', and I just kept me poor as a church mouse, all the time."
The founder of the block-long Binion's Horseshoe was buried five years ago Dec. 28, his funeral procession led down Fremont Street by a stagecoach. Binion's death, sandwiched between that of J. Kell Houssels Sr. and Sam Boyd, signified the end of an era when most Las Vegas casinos were privately run, family operations.
Binion was at times a gruff man. Mobsters were numbered among his companions and he killed two men in gunfights in his home state of Texas. He served a prison sentence on a tax conviction and his name never appeared on a state gaming license.
But his Western roots and jovial demeanor made him a Las Vegas icon.
In his oral history interview with UNLV, Binion said his earliest recollection was a buggy ride to the 1908 Texas State Fair. Binion was 4 years old.
"It was early in the morning, before daylight, I guess. So when we crossed this creek, there was a big bottom country there, and it was cotton, all of the year, and the frost'd hit this cotton, and it has a terrible odor. And the horses hit this bridge, trottin' across the bridge, woke me up, and I remember this odor, you see. I don't even remember bein' to the state fair, but I do have this cup to, you know, to give me the date and all."
Binion learned the gambling business from Warren...