Gambling

GAMBLING

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GAMBLING. Men and women throughout history and around the world have gambled. In the early colonial days, taverns were the main meeting place—and a place to put down a bet. In addition, gamblers and those who just placed an occasional bet had gambling halls, gaming rooms, saloons, even outdoor games to wager on. Indians, judges, Mexicans, physicians, Chinese, clergymen, African Americans, salesclerks, cowboys, and professional gamblers bet their money and sometimes their possessions on games of chance. Gambling venues included logging camps, elegant steamboats, railroad cars, boxing rings, and more.

Gambling was (and is)a form of entertainment. In the early days of the nation, people worked hard and often did not live near towns, thus when they did go to town they wanted to be entertained. Gambling gave an air of fairly harmless excitement and the payoff (or loss)was immediate.

Indians and Early Gambling

The Assiniboin Indians of North Dakota had a favorite dice game. Their two-sided dice had one side granting points when it came up; the other side did not. The dice were made of pieces of broken dishes or claws from a crow, with one side painted red, the other black. Buttons or other trinkets were also used as dice. Point values for each item were agreed upon before the game began. To make the game last longer and to have more at stake, the Assiniboins often played double or nothing. They would have one round with a set object as the prize. After round one, more objects—even wives—were added to the pot as the rounds continued. Sometimes games went on two and three days and nights, breaking only for meals. The dice games continued until one of the players had lost everything. Wives were property and had no say if they were lost to another man. They just moved. But there were some men who would not bet their wives, and fatal fights sometimes ensued.

The Zuni, Papago, and Hopi Indians liked to bet on foot races. Other tribes used hand games, the equivalent of, "Button, button, who's got the button." In this hand game, a button, or other small object, was placed in a person's hand. That person then began passing the button around the circle—or at least pretended to. Whoever was, "It" had to try to discern who had the button at any given time. If he was wrong, he lost the bet. Most betting included drumming and chants that grew more enthusiastic with each round.

In the 1830s Choctaw Indians played a serious game called, "ball play" that was similar to lacrosse and involved two teams, each consisting of ten players. Sticks about two feet long with a cup fashioned on one end were used to catch and throw a ball in this competition. George Catlin, the renowned Western artist, watched such a game with close to 700 young warriors as players. Women were in charge of the betting for this particular game. At stake were mostly household items, including dogs, horses, and guns. Spectators numbered in the thousands.

On the Upper Missouri River, the Mandan Indians' favorite game was, "the game of the arrow." Each young warrior who wanted to play had to pay an entry fee of a valued possession, such as a pair of moccasins or a robe. The object was to shoot arrows as fast as possible, seeing how many arrows could be launched before the first one hit the ground. In the game that Catlin observed, one of the warriors got eight arrows off and won all the prizes ("entry fees").

Gambling on Steamboats

Initially steamboats were used only to haul freight. In January of 1812, Robert Fulton introduced his boat, the New Orleans, as the first steamboat to carry passengers. By 1860, western rivers had 735 passenger steamboats plying their waters; these boats carried gamblers, who often took on the air of gentlemen, wearing knee-length black coats, ruffled white shirts, vests, and fancy rings. Referred to as "dandies," these professional gamblers were frequently con men who fleeced their victims in less than honest wins.

The belief was that 99 percent of riverboat gamblers cheated and worked with an accomplice. The gambler and his partner(s)would board the boats at different points, thus covering up their collusion. A team consisted of two, three, or up to six men. Some would play cards, while the others would give them signals. Tips were specific puffs of cigar smoke, holding a cane in a certain manner,

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wearing a hat at various angles, or anything that would not be obvious to the other players.

With their lavish frescoed walls, crystal chandeliers, and flowery carpets, the riverboats were expensive to run. The Great Republic was sold at auction in 1871 because fuel for the round trip from St. Louis to New Orleans cost $5,000.

Gambling Women

Women also gambled. Alice Tubbs, known as Poker Alice, was born Alice Ivers in Sudbury, England, in 1851; she moved to Virginia with her family in her late teens. She married a mining engineer in Colorado; his early death left her a young widow who soon became acquainted with gambling. Poker Alice learned her craft well in Colorado, practiced it in Oklahoma, and eventually found herself working as a faro dealer in South Dakota. She was apparently the only woman faro dealer that ever lived and worked in the Black Hills, primarily in Sturgis and Deadwood. Photos of Tubbs, who never played cards with strangers, always show her with a big cigar in her mouth. In the 1880s, Tubbs sometimes made $1,000 in just one evening of cards. Also a blackjack dealer and a madam, Poker Alice marched in the 1927 parade in Deadwood, South Dakota, when the town hosted President Calvin Coolidge. She died in 1930, having outlived three husbands.

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Lotteries and Violence

Ironically, even though many churches frowned upon other forms of gambling, lotteries were and are accepted by nearly everyone. Many church buildings, schools, and even roads and bridges were built by proceeds from lotteries. Perhaps because the tickets did not have to be sold in the smoky saloons but could be sold by anyone, anywhere, lotteries were looked upon as a good way to raise money and were not truly considered "gambling." Some states banned them; others embraced them. States then and now, passed lottery bills, then fought over how much of the proceeds the state would receive and how they would be used.

James Monroe Pattee, a New Hampshire writing instructor, was the king of lottery sales. He migrated to California for a time then settled in Omaha, Nebraska. He created lotteries for worthy causes such as hospitals and libraries. In 1873 Nebraska outlawed lotteries and Pattee moved to Wyoming. In that state a lottery could be legally offered by buying a three-month license for $100. During his first year in Wyoming, Pattee bought a license every three months for a total of $400. He sold about $7 million worth of tickets in that year. Despite the small population of Wyoming, he was successful because he advertised in the New York Herald newspaper, thus getting out-of-state business.

Violence was often gambling's companion; perhaps the most famous murder was that of Wild Bill Hickok in Deadwood, Dakota Territory. Although Hickok had a strict policy of never sitting with his back to the door when he was playing cards, on 2 August 1866, for the first time, he sat with his back to the door in Saloon #10 and was shot in the back by Jack McCall. Hickok's poker hand—a pair of aces and a pair of eights—was from then on known as a "Deadman's Hand." The saloon is still operating.

Gambling on the Reservation

Large scale casino gambling on Indian reservations was allowed in 1987 when the Supreme Court ruled in Calfornia vs. Cabazon Band of Mission Indians that states could regulate commercial gambling on Indian reservations. Congress subsequently passed the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA)in 1988. Proceeds of gaming operations were to be used for economic development and welfare of tribal members. Three levels, called classes, of gambling were defined. Class I: traditional tribal and social games with nominal prizes; this class is regulated solely by the tribe. Class II: in states where such games are legal and not prohibited by federal law, bingo, lotto, punch cards, and games played among individuals (not against the house)may be allowed or licensed by the tribe. Class III: casinos, which are the most highly regulated and must be legal in the state where the reservation is located; casinos are subject to state-tribal agreements. Such compacts delineate state-tribal regulatory authority; they also cover cooperative areas of criminal justice and payments to each state for enforcement and oversight.

From passage of IGRA in 1988 through the end of 1996, revenues from gambling on the reservations increased from $212 million to $6.7 billion. Of the 554 federally recognized tribes, the Bureau of Indian Affairs reports only 146 tribes with Class III gaming facilities. More than two-thirds of Indian tribes do not offer gambling; some tribes have voted not to offer gaming on their lands.

The Prairie Island Indian Community is one of eleven reservations in Minnesota and one of the smallest in that state. Prairie Island uses the revenue from its gambling operations to pay for some of its basic services and to improve the lives of tribal members. The largest Indian gambling facility in the United States, Foxwoods Casino (run by the Mashantucket Pequots)near Ledyard, Connecticut, employs about 13,000; the entire tribe has only about 500 members.

Alcohol consumption is not a given in reservation casinos; it is up to each tribe to decide if it will allow liquor to be sold on the reservation. In South Dakota, the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation is a dry reservation yet it owns and operates Prairie Wind Casino. It still draws visitors—and their dollars—to the reservation.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Moulton, Candy Vyvey. The Writer's Guide to Everyday Life in the Wild West From 1840–1900. Cincinnati, Ohio: Writers Digest Books, 1999.

Sasuly, Richard. Bookies and Bettors: Two Hundred Years of Gambling. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1982.

MacFarlan, Allan, and Paulette MacFarlan. Handbook of American Indian Games. New York: Dover, 1985.

Eadington, William. Indian Gaming and the Law. Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1998.

Peggy Sanders

See also Lotteries .