Old Reno
In an era when Reno casinos were the biggest and best in the world, Harrah's casino was probably the best-run, most innovative, and most profitable casino in Northern Nevada.
His casino was very much a product of his fastidious and meticulous methods of operation which overlooked no detail. This pattern of operation was a result of high demands, and a philosophy of treat people as you would like to be treated.
Pretty novel stuff compared to most of today's operators.
Bill Harrah opened his first club in Reno, Harrah's Bingo Club
at 124 North Center street on October 29th. 1937. He had earned the money
from operating a semi-legal game in Venice, California he had purchased
from his father in 1931. In that club, he learned the value of maintaining
top notch facilities, customer relations, and a good deal of business acumen.
By November 15th, about 2 weeks later, Harrah's Club Bingo was out of business.
Harrah's second club began in July of 1938, when Harrah opened Harrah's Plaza Tango (Tango was a common name for Bingo at that time), a bingo and slot club at 14 E. Commercial Street.
For Harrah's third club, Harrah knew that location meant everything, and in Reno, location meant Virginia Street. While operating the Tango club, in September of 1938, he made an offer to Ed Howe for his Heart Tango Club located at 242 North Virginia Street, and the offer was accepted.
This club became known as Harrah's Bingo, and began a pattern of success for Harrah, based on his ability to network with other club operators, borrow money, make good business deals, and foremost as a hallmark, to provide best-in-class accomodations for his patrons.
Harrah's Bingo club was located next to Harolds Club, and shared a door with that club that permitted drinks from Harolds to be served in Harrah's. When Harrah's lease for this club expired in 1945, it became part of Harolds Club.
In 1942 Harrah opened the Black Out Bar in an alley between Virginia Street and Center street. It had slot machines and a craps table. Also in 1942, Harrah took over the Reno Club from Fred Aoyama, and operated the bingo parlor until 1948 when he was forced to vacate by the courts, who ruled the lease had been invalid. This club eventually became part of Harolds Club as well.
The First and Original Harrah's Club
Finally, in June of 1946 Harrah's Club opened at 210 North Virginia Street. Harrah had purchased the Mint Club at 214 Virginia street, next to the bank building, which became his first full- service casino featuring all the games we expect in such a club. The casino featured horse race betting, two bars, a keno game, a Faro bank, 2 roulette games, 6 Blackjack games, 3 craps tables, and 40 slot machines.
Originally the Virginia Street casino had 35 front feet opening onto the main drag, and was 140 feet deep, back to the alley. Expansion was almost constant, and in 1956 Harrah bought the Frontier Club and immediately doubled in size. By 1962 Harrah's announced a four-level casino and restaurant at the corner of Second and Center Streets where the Grand Hotel and Cafe had been. The property on this corner eventually opened in 1963 with 9,250 square feet with 430 slot machines, 3 craps games, 12 Blackjack games, one roulette wheel, one PM wheel, and one Keno game. There was a 165 seat restaurant on the second floor called the Terrace Room.
In 1966 Harrah's Headliner Room was built over the old Grand Hotel site, featuring a 400 seat theatre-restaurant. This was on Harrah's 20th anniversary of the 1946 opening. Also opening in 1966 was the Black Out Bar, a coffee shop, the Steak House restaurant, and two other bars. The Black Out Bar was actually a re-opening of the original, as this bar was also located with one wall to the alley between Center and Virginia Street. It became a favorite of the employees.
The Hotel Casino 1968 to 1978
In 1968, plans were announced for a 24 story hotel, and work started in May of that year, with a scheduled opening of fall 1969. In October of 1969 the 361-room, $6 million hotel opened. In 1973 after having purchased the Greyhound bus station at that site, Harrah's opened the Sports Casino in 1975 which had 11,000 square feet of gaming area with 14 table games, one Keno game, and 150 slot machines. The slot machine repair shop was located in the basement of this facility.
Perhaps the greatest sign of success for Bill Harrah and his casino empire was in September of 1971 when his company became the first publicly traded company whose income was based mostly on gambling.
Of course this hugely successful operation was not due solely to Bill Harrah's single-handed efforts. His major talent was in choosing and delegating to very good people who were faithful in their conduct to Harrah's vision. He also had the very good fortune to have friends to help him out financially, as well as personally as he had well known drinking and gambling problems, and a not-too successful personal life, having been married six times. Bill Harrah died on June 30 1978, two months shy of 67 years old. He just undergone surgery for a weakened aortal artery.
In February of 1980 Holiday Inn acquired Harrah's.
The Mechanical Slot Machines
Harrah's used Pace slot machines, as did Harolds Club. The Nevada Club and Fitzgerald's used Jennings. Up until the late 1970's, all the machines were mechanical, with some electric features like light-up fronts (Jennings), and lights atop the machine, and various bells and buzzers to signal jackpots. These mechanicals were phased out at Harrah's beginning in 1979.
All the larger casinos had their own slot shop where machines would be maintained, modified, and altered for a variety of reasons. The slot shop at Harrah's eventually was located in the basement of the Sports Casino on the east side of Center street.
There were slot machine elevators constructed in both the Hotel and Virginia Street casinos that were used to transport the machines from the floor to the slot shop, both by the slot Keyman, and maintenance personnel.
The slot machines were fixed on a rotating base to a stand on the casino floor. The Keyman carried a tool which was inserted into the base of the slot machine, which unlocked the rotating mechanism. The Keyman could then turn the machine to access the back of the slot. After removing the back of the cabinet, most machines that were on the floor, would be so full of coins that missed the drop chute, or never made it to the drop chute, that it was a slow process to remove the back, a fraction of an inch at a time while pushing the coins back into the cabinet, and down the chute to the collection bin beneath. A typical 25 cent machine at Harrah's would have a hundred dollars or more just laying loose inside the case.
A keyman would be called to open a machine to clear jams, fill payout tubes,
pay jackpots of a high denomination, and generally be the
first line of defense for fixing malfunctions on the floor.
The Keyman
was a promotion from the change position, and was called a Keyman becuase
they were entrusted with keys to open the slot machines, slot elevators, and a couple
of tools to fix jams, and rotate the machines. Many Keymen wore a black vest on the
job, in addition to the change apron to keep the required white shirt from getting
greasy from handling machines all day.
Harrah's had a variety of Pace and shop-built Pace-based mechanicals in Reno. Some were configured as piggyback double machines, others had 4 reels, some were jackpot-only, and there were some which played on $5 tokens.
By the end of their time, most all the slot machines had several repairs, brazed-on bits, and had been customized from what was available from the factory. These were sturdy machines that probably paid for themselves many times over during their operational lifetime.
The light candle on top of each machine had two colored lights, and meters which
recorded the number of jackpots. The top light
was color coded to the denomination of the machine;
red was for 5 cent, green for 10 cent, yellow for quarter, brown for 50c, and blue
for $1.
The white light when lit by pressing the "change" button
would call a change person, and the colored light would signal a jackpot, and was
switched on by the trip levers inside the mechanism.
When a jackpot was hit, the player would wait for a change person or keyman
to arrive. The change persons job was to verify that the jackpot was ok by reading
the meter number. The change person or Keyman had a microphone that would call
to the nearest change booth. The cashier at the change booth would verify that
that the sequence was correct, and use a hand-signal to tell the Keyman or change
person to pay.
Once ok'd,
they would payout the balance that the machine didn't dump, and would
hand the player a coupon redeemable in the gift shop.
The player was then
asked to play off the jackpot as the change person watched. At this point
the change person might be tipped for service.
William Fisk Harrah
William Fisk "Bill" Harrah was born in South Pasadena, California.
He studied mechanical engineering at UCLA for less than one year and was a member of the
Phi Delta Theta Fraternity.
He was forced to drop out when the Great Depression of the late 1920's hit
and soon began work at various family businesses including a pool hall,
a hot dog stand, shooting gallery and a bingo-style operation called the "Reno Game."
Harrah was a driving influence in the creation of the Nevada Gaming Control Board
in 1955. He was keenly interested in making the "gaming" industry achieve a status
on par with more common business enterprises.
Harrah's interest in automobiles is known throughout the world, and his collection
was and likely never will be equaled in content quality or quantity.
Harrah was married six times, and has two sons, John and Tony Harrah.
Harrah began his casino career in a business filled with hustlers
crooks, and outright cheats. Bill Harrah was honest and brought respect to the casino
industry, but he was also a drunk and a womanizer and a habitual gambler.
While married to his second wife Scherry, he got on the wagon and focused his
attention on building his business.
Bill Harrah's passion was old automobiles. He sank tens of millions into
buying and restoring them, and he spent much more time with his auto collection
than he did with his executives. Ironically, perhaps this is the reason why Harrah's, unique
among the Reno innovators, survived the death of its founder so well.
Harrah's personal life was less well orgainzed, and when he died in 1978 he left no
plans for his business, the automobile collection, or anything else beyond
establishing trusts for his family.
Comments from Customers and Employees of Harrah's Club
I was employed by Harrah's in the late 1970's. I was hired after visiting the personnel office a few blocks from the casino. I started at the ground floor as a slot change person, working day shifts in the Virginia Street casino where Harrah's Club began.
Employee orientation was given through several means, including reference to one or more policy and guidline binders which described in detail the requirements for each position in the casino. These requirements and policies were very detailed, down to spelling out overall employee appearance. For example, cocktail waitresses were required to have an appearance of "model quality", while dealers must be "attractive" and slot personnel "well groomed". Smiling, paying attention to customers, and other people skills were mentioned as well. Appearance was codified for every position in the required attire, such as a clip-on tie for slot and dealers. It was a clip-on to prevent an unruly customer having a handle from which to grab more than attention.
During orientation, we viewed a video from Mr. Harrah explaining how he valued his employees, and appreciated that we were the front lines that made everything run. He expected a lot from us, and was willing to give in return. "If there's ever anything you need, or see that need to be fixed, or might be unfair, just let us know. We can work it out. We don't need nor want a union. A union is not needed when employees work with us to resolve any issues." That was the anti-union speech at that time, and it made sense.
As a change person, I was hired at $28 per 8 hour shift, and was given tips in cash on a bi-weekly basis. Others who made more in tips, divided up the tip pool every night. Dealers generally began at about $32 per shift, plus daily tips which averaged from $40 to $70 per day.
Working change, when I got to work, I would be given an amount of money for my change apron from the counting room downstairs below the Hotel casino floor. I would then relieve someone from their post, or open my own for the day, which was associated with a money drawer. I replenished my apron from this locked drawer throughout the day. From time to time, I might have to replenish the drawer from a cashier booth or the main cashier cage, and at the end of my shift it would be counted to be certain it contained the same amount was present as when I arrived. I would then take my apron down to the counting room, and give the coin back to the counter. She would add up the amount I returned, and if it matched the amount I had checked out with at the beginning of the shift, you had a "Noser", a count which balanced on the nose.
It was not uncommon to miss a nickel here and there, and sometimes as much as a dollar at reconciliation time. At least at the beginning it was not uncommon for me. After a month or so, I was just not paying enough attention, and I got a talking-to by the shift supervisor. Basically, it was get Nosers, or be gone. From then on, I paid a lot more attention to payouts and change requests, and became a stellar employee. I was promoted to Keyman shortly thereafter.
As a Keyman, I got an increase in pay to $30 per shift, and after a while at that job, I applied to become a dealer.
Being a dealer, I would start at $32 per shift, and my daily tips would be more than my bi-weekly tips from the slot shift. Nice. I would also be officially among the "attractive" people. I really enjoyed the working atmosphere, and 90% of the customers. I always tried to make each customer's time in the casino fun and pleasant, and that worked for me in return.
As a 21 dealer we were given 2 weeks (80 hours) of training in the game, ettiquette, money handling, pit processes, and spotting cheaters. By the time we got on the floor, we were pretty confident, and all the supervisors were helpful if we got in trouble. Occasionally there would be a mis-deal, or a bad payout, but for the most part, it was pretty easy. Worst cases were always the drunks, but there weren't many of those. Some of the new-to-the-pit personnell started on the PM wheel, which was very simple duty. Craps, roulette, and bacarat dealers were promoted from the 21 dealer pool.
As a casino employee, we were encouraged to play in the casino after hours. It of course required that we did not wear our name badges while playing. I worked very hard and didn't have much time to play in those days. I seldom had a 2 day weekend, and frequently worked 1 1/2 shifts per day. By the end of the day, I didn't want to stay in the casino. Now and then, I'd spend some time with other employees in the Blackout Bar, which was kind of an employee hangout. If I'd had much sense, I'd be playing some of the slots that I knew paid off too frequently. For those who asked when I was a Keyman, I could point them to a machine that would almost certainly cough up a jackpot right away. After working there for a while you knew them all.
I always got asked what the best game in the house was, and not knowing what else
to say I'd reply "Well, my paycheck never bounces."
I got to meet most of the personnel on the day shift up to Virgil Smith who had
been Mr. Harrah's friend since the 40's. He was a remarkably nice guy, who seemed
to know everyone by name, down to the slot change people. I remember mentioning
some shabby felt to him at one time, and the next day the tables had been changed
out. All the executives there ran their business with extraordinary attention to
detail.
One of the benefits of being a Harrah's employee was free admission to the Auto Collection. On my day off, I'd generally do laundry, and then go hang out at the museum. A casual visitor could never take it all in, but I actually got to know many of the cars and other vehicles, and it was a truly remarkable collection the likes of which we will never, ever, see again. Other benefits were the very good employee cafeteria wich fed us great food at a very good price, such as about $1.40 for a nice roast beef lunch. We also got to use the spa facilites in the Hotel for free. Many times when I worked more than one shift, I would use the spa for a quick shower and shave, of course tipping the attendant for the privledge.
It was a sad day for me when I made the decision to leave Harrah's to complete my Master's degree on a full time basis. They really didn't want me to leave either, but in the end it was best for us all. It was a great place to work while Bill Harrah was alive.
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Much of the information here is from "The Rise of the Biggest Little City: An Encyclopedic History of Reno Gaming 1931 - 1981" by Dwayne Kling. ISBN 087417340X, published by University of Nevada Press, 2000.
Copyright © 2006, Sunzeri Consultants. All rights reserved. Photos and text may not be reproduced or otherwise distributed without the author's expressed permission.