Key Fechser, the grandson of Benny Binion, died Jan. 28 of an apparent heart attack while visiting his son, T.J. Fechser, in Santa Fe, N.M., family members inform me. Murder was also technically illegal, but in the spirit of those times it was usually easier to beat a murder rap than to get exonerated for breaking and entering. This was the second time Behnen has gotten away with attacking a women in Piero's. A professional bar fly, Behnen has until recently been exempt from arrest or prosecution because he's the grandson of the legendary Benny Binion of Horseshoe Casino fame. Prison took something out of Benny and maybe put something else in its place. In 1970, after years of arranging heads-up matches between high-stakes players, Binion invited six players to compete in a tournament. He still loved to talkGod how he loved to talk!and he held court every afternoon at a corner booth at the Horseshoe, telling old war stories. 3 talking about this. Funeral mass will be celebrated at 10:00 a.m., Tuesday, August 2, 2022, at St. Ann's Catholic Church in Canyon. The wild West motif worked in Las Vegas for many years, just as it had in Dallas, but again times were changing. In January 1988, Bennys grandson, 33-year-old Steve Binion Fechser, and two security guards were convicted of assaulting the two blackjack players. Despite his many crimes, he never stayed behind bars for long. Moss, then aged 63, was voted champion by his younger competition and received a small trophy. Marshals barged . Though Benny claimed that he never went to school a day in his life, never learned to read or write, to multiply or subtract, he knew about numbers. It was a subject on which the senator was well qualified to speak, Benny having gifted him with a new Hudson Hornet automobile a short time before. Benny Binion lived the first half of his life in Texas and the last half in Las Vegas and became a legend in both places. Latest Entries Winners. Outraged by the light sentence, Wade traveled to Washington, where he consulted with U.S. attorney general James McGrannery and other high officials of the Truman administration. By the late thirties he was a bodyguard for Sam Murray. He is well known as the son of casino magnate Benny Binion. Bennys gang kept 80 percent of the take and paid out the other 20 percent to the lucky winners. His parents kept him out of school due to precarious. He noticed they liked to gamble an . But instead of passing sentence, district judge Thomas Foley took it on himself to overturn the jury verdict, an action within the power of a Nevada judge. Casino Mogul Benny Binion's historic family ranch home in North Las Vegas, now abandoned and fallen into disrepair. Fire Ants Have Unleashed Chaos in Texas for Decades. Every weekend thousands of troops poured into town. Fremont Street, the site of Binions casino, in 1952. It is one of the few markets in Las Vegas food desert areas where there are limited options for affordable and nutritious food in lower-income neighborhoods. Ted Binion had a net worth of $10 million at the time of his death. Just before the plane took off, police stopped Noble. Wikimedia CommonsBinion standing with his daughter, Becky, in front of the $1 million display at his casino. Binions Horseshoe Club was never known as a Salvation Army annex, but Benny Binion had a soft spot for the ragged Westside kids who would mill around behind his gambling hall. That same month, Bugsy Siegel opened his fabulous Flamingo Hotel and Casino. The sale closed on Mar. The family sold all the parcels in April 1998 to John Hillenbrand. Challenging a racketeer like Warren Diamond was a bold move for a 22-year-old, but it was exactly the sort of risk that energized Benny. Seldom had ambition and opportunity been better matched. The rule was, Do your enemies before they can do you, and Benny often found it necessary to arbitrate business differences with a .45 automatic. Fechser ran a lot of lifes stoplights, rarely missed a party, and racked up more miles on his body than most. Her power daddies in the thirties and forties, particularly downtown bankers Bob Thornton and Fred Florence, not only tolerated vice, they competed with Fort Worth publisher Amon Carter to see which town could be the most wicked. Teddy Jane ran the casino as though it were a mom-and-pop cafe, trusting no one but herself to make bank deposits. Noble might have pulled it off except that Dallas police lieutenant George Butler, who was on temporary assignment to the Kefauver committee, happened to drive up to the ranch just as Noble was doing his final checkout. Wikimedia CommonsFremont Street, the site of Binions casino, in 1952. One of the assailants is reported to be 23 year old Benny Behnen, the grandson of Horseshoe founder Benny Binion and the son of current Horseshoe owners Becky and Nick Behnen. Binion standing with his daughter, Becky, in front of the $1 million display at his casino. He was also 37% owner of the property on which Binion's Horseshoe Casino stood. Unlike later casinos, the Horseshoe didnt offer entertainment or fancy decor. An outraged Wade pushed for a harsher sentence. When Benny, a gambler and racketeer with few peers in Texas or anyplace else, left Dallas in 1946 for the more forgiving atmosphere of Sin City, he couldn't have envisioned the. I used to have lunch over at the Horseshoe fairly often, he replied, but I guess I wont be welcome after this, heh?, Not at all, honey, she told him. Born in 1904, Binion was a Texan who loved rodeo and lived gambling. The 138-acre Pahrump property where Binion's silver stash was hidden before his untimely death has been sold. At the Horseshoe, Binion began to stake his reputation on bets of any size. Noble was in Fort Worth negotiating the purchase of an old Air Force training center called Hicks Field when the fifth attempt was made on his life. Like us on Facebook. The crowd included Willie Nelson, Hank Williams, Jr., Gene Autry, Dale Robertson, and other celebrities and underworld characters. Bennys eldest child, Barbara Binion Fechser, was a drug addict and died from an overdose in 1983, an apparent suicide; and his youngest son, Ted Binion, pleaded guilty to a drug charge in 1987. She and her dad had a relationship like no other. Officially, Benny was charged with only two homicides, a black rumrunner named Frank Bolding, who was gunned down in Bennys back yard in 1931, and a rival racketeer named Ben Frieden, who was ambushed in September 1936 as he waited in his parked car on Allen Street for a policy pickup. By the 1980s, Benny had amassed an 85,000-acre (340 km 2) ranch, according to the county recorder's office. He was a casino veteran in the Binion tradition, a loving father of his son T.J. and daughter, Fancy. Ted Binion's House (Former) Ted Binion was a wealthy U.S. gambling executive and one of the sons of famed Las Vegas casino magnate Lester Ben "Benny" Binion, owner of Binion's Horseshoe. In 1998, Binion's daughter, Becky, took over the presidency . Bill Coulthard. His face was gentler and rounder, his blue eyes cloudy and not so hard, his waist and hips going to fat, his voice husky but good-humored. Frank Sutton, a detective sergeant with the Las Vegas metropolitan police department, says, The Horseshoe was the only casino in town that didnt believe in calling the police. Havent I seen you in the hotel? she asked. The downtown bankers and the big law firms believed that having an open town was patriotic, recalls Will Wilson, who became the district attorney of Dallas County at the end of the war. . But by pulling strings, Binion got his case transferred to Nevada jurisdiction, where he walked away with probation and a small fine. It was by his grandfathers side a young Fechser, who died this past week at age 55 of an apparent heart attack, learned a life lesson. Binions son Ted recalls that his father was going to raise the keno limit to $500. A Texas jury convicted Binion of tax evasion. Ambitious young veterans, presenting themselves as reform candidates for political office, preached a gospel of growth, prosperity, law and order; red-light districts and gambling houses fell on their onslaught. He also invented the now-famous World Series of Poker. Benny Binion at a Texas jail in 1953. Was it one, as Benny maintained at the time, or three, as Bill Decker told the grand jury? Binion and his wife, Teddy Jane, had five children: two sons, Jack and Ted, and three daughters, Barbara, Brenda and Becky. But he also knew the value of charity. It might have come off too, except Benny couldnt keep his famous mouth shut. Across the street, Steve Wynn planned to open a 2,000-room hotel and casino called the Golden Nugget. Benny Binion's dice game. McGrannery sent two attorneys from the Department of Justice to Dallas to supervise a new grand jury, and the FBI and the IRS made the investigation a priority. The mind-set of the times was compressed in a saying that Benny repeated all of his life: Never holler whoa or look back in a bad place. When Benny thought of the Depression, he thought of what his pal Red Nose Kelly said one Thanksgiving Day when the bartender at the C&W poolroom asked him what he was thankful for. But while the judge in Dallas sent Urban to prison, Binions case was transferred to Nevada jurisdiction, and he got off with probation and a small fine. Texas Estate That Was Notorious Gangster's Hideout Finds Buyer The 1,369-acre compound, the longtime hideaway of career criminal and convicted murderer Benny Binion, was sold for at least. Binion died in Las Vegas in 1989.. [7] In retaliation, Noble planned to fly his private plane to Las Vegas to bomb Binion's house, but was restrained by local law enforcement before he could execute his plan. [32] Playing no-limit Texas Hold'em, the players competed for cash at the table, and later took a vote on who was to be named champion. Vegas was Bennys kind of town, businesslike and practical, the way Dallas had been in the thirties, only more direct, less hypocritical. back to Texas.. In 1980 a high roller from Austin walked into the Horseshoe with two suitcases, one full and one empty. Family. Binion didn't operate a casino until 1951 in Las Vegas.). He had a very strong value system that he lived by, and he was as loyal a friend as anybody could ever want. In this milieu, Benny Binion was bound to succeed, his business being the citys pleasure and vice versa. As for the skid-row bum, Bob Minyard, he became one of Binions regulars after that. The Southland Hotel Group ran several different policy wheels, so called because winning numbers were drawn lottery style twice daily from wire-mesh wheels; the world policy was there to suggest that a ticket was in some way insurance. If anything the meeting only escalated the violence. Another dependable gunsel was Ivy Miller, who bushwhacked a gambler named Sam Murray after he made a move on Bennys territory in 1938. The show will be based on the biography Blood Aces: The Wild Ride of Benny Binion. During Las Vegass lawless years, no one was quite as lawless as Benny Binion. Benny did not cut his ties with Dallas, however. In 1946, a rival shot him in the back. Work through the federal courts, Wade reasoned, nail Binion on charges of income tax evasion, then hit him with gambling charges after the feds had returned him to Texas. His wife, Teddy Jane, and his eldest son, Jack, were much better able to handle the daily affairs of the casino and hotel business. In 1980 a mysterious gunman shot Dan Woolley in the . This is the true story of a gambling icon. A few days later Noble found another bomb in another airplane. Benny posted a reward of $10,000 for Nobles scalp, the bumped it to $25,000, and then to $50,000, with a craps game thrown in as added incentive. In 1998, Binion's daughter, Becky, took over the presidency after a legal battle, and Jack moved on to other gambling interests. His casino's trademark: $2 steaks, free booze and no-limit betting. [13][14] Shortly afterward a long-running feud between Binion and Herbert Noble, a small-time Dallas gambler, boiled over when Noble refused to increase his payoff to Binion from 25 to 40 percent. Much to his consternation, this being the late 60s, Key found that he was alone and feeling intimidated in a cell full of African-Americans. [23], Binion was in the vanguard of Las Vegas casino innovation. He was raised in the family gambling business and in recent years spent part of his summers in Alaska. They called him the Cowboy, for reasons that had to do with guns, not horses. He started moonshining and was convicted twice. His father, a horse trader, let him accompany him on trips. Miraculously, the Cat limped away with just a few bruises and a leg full of buckshot. Blood Aces: The Wild Ride of Benny Binion, the Texas Gangster Who Created Vegas Poker Paperback - July 28, 2015 by Doug J. Swanson (Author) 356 ratings Editors' pick Best Biographies & Memoirs See all formats and editions Kindle $12.99 Read with Our Free App Audiobook $0.00 Free with your Audible trial Hardcover Benny Binion's World Famous Bucking Horse & Bull Sale is held at the South Point Hotel & Casino during. Once thickset and muscular, Noble had lost at least fifty pounds and looked like a piece of overcooked bacon. Binion pleaded guilty and paid his fine on the spot in cash. Linda Coffee Argued Roe v. Wade. Benny Binion's dice game. Key was a free-spirited fellow who lived his life as fast as the law allowed and, in truth, a little faster. They called him the Cowboy, for reasons that had to do with guns, not. In November 1949 his wife was killed in a car bombing intended for him. Even during the Depression, the policies netted hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Until recently, the dealers wore jeans. In an effort to negotiate a peace treaty between Binion and Noble, Flamingo Hotel president Dave Berman, a front man for the Eastern syndicate, sent a scumball named Harold Shimley to Dallas for a secret rendezvous with Noble. [19] In 1949 he opened the Westerner Gambling House and Saloon, but he soon sold out after conflicts with his casino partners. They were retried and acquitted. So it was that when 36-year-old Mildred Noble climbed into her husbands car in front of their Oak Cliff home and stepped on the starter, an explosion blew parts of the car over the treetops. In 1973, he speculated that eventually the tournament might have fifty or so entrants. Meeting at a tourist court near Love Field (and speaking into a hidden microphone planted by the Dallas police) Shimley assured the Cat that no one was more grief-stricken by his wifes death than Benny Binion, that Benny had sworn on the lives of his own wife and five children that he had nothing to do with the bombing. Politicians, judges, cops, entertainers, rodeo cowboys, robbers, and pistoleros from Dallas to Vegas owed him debts of gratitude, and sometimes debts of hard cash, which Benny was inclined to forget, rationalizing that if somebody owed him money it was his own damn fault. Thomas Foley and his brother Roger Foley, Jr., eventually became judges themselves, as did Bennys other chief lawyer, Harry Claiborne. He was the first in the downtown Glitter Gulch to replace sawdust-covered floors with carpeting, the first to dispatch limousines to transport customers to and from the casino, and the first to offer free drinks to players. [36] Poker great "Amarillo Slim" Preston suggested as an epitaph, "He was either the gentlest bad guy or the baddest good guy you'd ever seen. His office was a booth in the downstairs restaurant, and he knew many of his customers by name. [22], Binion was known to be generous to patrons, and said he followed a simple philosophy when serving his customers: "Good food, good whiskey cheap, and a good gamble. That didnt end it, however. Mike Hall writes about criminals, musicians, the law, and barbecue. He took $777,000 from the full suitcase and slapped it on the dont pass line. Two men assumed to be cheating at blackjack were hauled into the security office, beaten, and robbed. A well-known figure in the cutting community, Brenda Binion Michael, 81, of Amarillo, Texas, passed away July 27, 2022. After teaming up with the FBI, Wade found a judge who apparently vowed, Im gonna get that S.O.B. Noble managed to stop and flee on foot, but a slug caught him in the back as he escaped into the woods. He was definitely marching to a different drummer. . At the time, the rubbing out of Sam Murray must have seemed like just another shooting, but it touched off a gang war that blazed across Dallas and Fort Worth for the next twenty years. Teddy Jane died in 1994, having survived Benny by five years. Blood Aces tells the story of Binion's crucial role in shaping modern Las Vegas. [20], In 1951, Binion purchased the Eldorado Club and the Apache Hotel, opening them as Binion's Horseshoe, which immediately became popular because of the high limits on bets. Benny often dispatched his grandson, Key Binion Fechser, to distribute what often was the only hot meal of the day for the African-American kids. Benny was a product of turn-of-the-century Texas, when gambling was an accepted occupation and killing was a proper way of settling things, Old West style. In 1949, Noble discovered dynamite in his car before starting the engine. In 1951, Nevada Sen. E. L. Nores appeared as a character witness when Binion wanted his casino license. 102 Years Later, She Died Of COVID-19, What Stephen Hawking Thinks Threatens Humankind The Most, 27 Raw Images Of When Punk Ruled New York, Join The All That's Interesting Weekly Dispatch. Hed brought $100,000 to bribe the judge, but the FBI threatened him and scared him off, Binion later claimed. By 1946, Dallas had elected a reform administration. He got religion in Leavenworth from a Catholic priest. One man walked in and bet $1 million losing it all on the pass line at the craps table. Im able to do my own killing without that sorry son of a bitch! So much for pardon application number five. Benny Binion, whose full name was Lester Ben Binion, was born in 1904. As usual, Bennys timing was perfect. Nobody got out alive. This was a betrayal that could not go unchallenged. Before coming to Nevada, he ran an illegal gambling operation in Texas, as gambling was pretty much all he knew in life.. Chilis a dime and I still like it, Red Nose replied straight off. In February of 1960, Benny Binion's son Jack was approved by the state gaming commission for a 2 % interest in the Horseshoe Club. Benny Binion, gambler, convicted murderer, casino owner, and friend to many a wayward cowboy. Smoot Schmid or deputy sheriff Bill Decker, his longtime friend and the lawman who really ran Dallas for most of three decades. Benny paid his $20,000 fine on the spot, peeling the bills from a much larger roll he had brought along to bribe the judge. Teddy Jane Binion will no doubt be among the spectators, as she was at her grandsons trial three years ago. Rosary/Vigil will be said at 6:00 p.m., Monday, August 1, 2022, at Schooler Funeral Home in Amarillo. Benny's wife, Teddy Jane, managed the casino cage until her death in 1994. In addition to scholarly publications with top presses, she has written for Atlas Obscura and Ranker. The ranch property is in the middle of Pahrump behind Walmart near Highway 160 and Wilson Road. Someone still cared. There is a larger-than-life statue of the Cowboy near the rear entrance of Binions Horseshoe Hotel and Casino, the no-limit, no-frills gambling joint in downtown Las Vegas that Benny opened in 1951 and his family still owns. Binion wasted no time in setting up operations in the Southland once the city of Dallas ceased enforcing gambling laws. On Valentines Day 1949, Noble discovered dynamite wired to the starter of his car, which was parked near the Airmens Club. In 1980, the little mining town of Clayton, Idaho was a two-bar town it still is to look at it on Google maps. He was in the same courtroom on the circuit where his father, grandfather and great-grandfather tried cases as the elected prosecutor for more than 80 years. When the casino closed, Boyd Gaming took up the tradition that Binion started by continuing to pay all the entry fees. At the time, the casino game in Las Vegas was relegated to dives patronized by mobsters. By the mid-eighties, Las Vegas was trying to recast its image as a sort of adult Disneyland, and the Horseshoes vigilante tactics were an embarrassment. Jack Binion (left), Benny, and US Senator Howard Cannon (c. 1960s). And yet there was no question that the Cowboy had mellowed. His mind was slipping too, and he had started drinking heavily and taking pills. They took care of trouble their own way.. We report on vital issues from politics to education and are the indispensable authority on the Texas scene, covering everything from music to cultural events with insightful recommendations. They were always hungry, those children. (This narrative is disputed as fact and is most likely a myth. The danger to high-stakes gamblers was from robbers, not cops. Natural World Travel People The American Experience Artistic Drone/Aerial. Today is January 9th, 2014. Benny Binion at the 1979 World Series of Poker. The king of racketeering in Dallas, Binion moved to Vegas in the 1940s and opened his own casino. He died on September 17, 1998. He never forgot the cowboys after they arrived; he always paid the entry fees for all of the cowboys for their championship event.
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