30.12.97,Las Vegas, Clark County
The native Americans took over cardgames from the spanish conquistadores. The different tribes adapted the games in all kinds of ways: The Assiniboin (North Dakota) for example played with 25 die in a wooden bowl at once. Some communities utilized gambling in religious ceremonies, others just played in their free time. Crow Indians, the Costanoan, Black River Indians, Hopi and Navajo held racing events, played games similiar to polo and rugby, and playing cards was quite popular. Not only the Native Americans gambled, gaming had never been as socially recognized before as in the pioneer days (around 1841). In the Southwest (Santa Fe, Dodge City) gambling was the number one pastime, there just was not much you could do after working on the railroad or in the mines all day.
The tensions that arose between the Native Americans and the white pioneers in the middle of the 19th century were partly due to gambling. The natives were pretty good at hustling the settlers into losing most of their money in dubios games, and in the end the Apache, for e.g., had to paint their own playing cards because they were not allowed to buy regular ones. In 1848 the Gold Rush in California had thousands of people coming to the west. Gambling was as excessive and dishonest as never before, bloody fights were a everyday event. In these rough times also some women made a fortune, like the famous Poker Alice, who opened a casino in Nevada which was flourished until she died poor of old age.
Around 1900 Reno was probably the wildest town, which had 1200 casinos with a population of 15000. After California had banned gambling in 1872, the Californians fled to Arizona (Tombstone) or Nevada(Reno) to play their beloved games. Of course there still were enough backrooms where Poker was played, a game imported from New Orleans around 1800. 1910 is black year in Nevadas history. Gamblers from all over the world come to casinos to play the odds a last time - also in Nevada gambling is outlawed, as the last state of the USA. In 1931 a law allowing gambling is passed, and with it the unsurpassed boom of Las Vegas is made possible.

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