Casino Gaming History and News

A few days from now, poker players from all across the world were slated to head to Las Vegas for this year’s World Series of Poker festivities. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, many things in the world have been put on hold. On April 20^th, the World Series of Poker issued a statement Executive Director of the World Series of Poker Ty Stewart that said, “We are committed to running the World Series of Poker this year but need additional time to proceed on our traditional scale while prioritizing guest and staff well-being.”

In the meantime, many people are playing poker at home and they need cards. To get everybody in the World Series of Poker spirit since this year’s poker tournaments are delayed, all of our individual WSOP decks from 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019 are all 20 percent off this week. Each deck will get an automatic 20 percent off and the discount will show up at checkout.

The sale will last through Memorial Day Weekend on Monday at 11:59 PM.

You can purchase all the decks clicking each photo below to get the 20 percent off discount:

Additionally, you may be interested in a case of 144 decks of World Series of Poker Cards from different years. You can find all those options clicking each picture below:

Finally, our 8 pack of WSOP decks give you a chance to own each and every WSOP deck from 2016 through 2019. You can purchase clicking the picture below: 

This past week, we saw some familiar faces and new ones in our store in Downtown Las Vegas. All employees are wearing masks and gloves in retail. We also have disposable masks for customers if you come to our store without one. We also are also keeping our store well cleaned and sanitized for all who come in.

Our new hours are Monday to Friday from 9:30 AM to 5:30 PM and Saturday from 10:00 AM to 5:30 PM. We hope to see you soon.

In honor of re-opening, we are offering a 10 percent discount for our Las Vegas themed items and souvenirs section online. Everything will get an automatic discount of 10 percent off at checkout after you add it to your cart through next Friday on our website. Additionally, all these items are 10 percent off in our store in Las Vegas to next Friday if you mention it at the counter.

You can find the entire section below clicking the picture that includes keychains, mugs, money clips, magnets, and much more.

Here’s a few of those Las Vegas themed items this week that are 10 percent off. You can purchase each clicking the picture below:

Finally, we are discounting our 84-inch poker table with dealer tray in the picture below for 20 percent off online and in-store for the next week till Friday, May 22nd. If you have any question about this sale, you can email me at marketing@spinettis.com.

This coming week, Spinettis Gaming Supplies will re-open on Wednesday May 13^th. Our store hours will be 9:30 AM to 5:30 PM Monday through Friday and 10:00 AM to 5:30 PM on Saturday. We will be closed on Sunday.

To keep you safe if you are visiting our store:

We will have hand sanitizer for the customers to clean their hands when they arrive in store.

Our retail employees will be wearing masks at all time. We encourage our customers to wear masks also, but they are not required.

We will be following the federal and state social distancing guidelines of 6 feet and require our customers to do same. To offer as safe and clean shopping environment as possible, we will be sanitizing store surfaces frequently.

The amount of customers in our retail store will be limited to half of our capacity.

We will continue offering our local curb side pickup Monday-Friday 9:30am to 5:30 PM. Orders can be placed by phone 702-362-8767 or through our website www.spinettisgaming.com

Orders placed on www.spinettis.com will be continued to shipped Monday to Friday.

Anyone who has questions can reach us via online chat at this link clicking below: https://app.purechat.com/w/SpinettisLiveChat

You can reach us on Facebook Messenger by clicking here.

We thank you for your attention to this matter. We are excited to see you real soon.

If you have come to our store in Las Vegas in the past, you probably have looked through our high-end casino chip book. By popular demand, we are going to start listing all of our high-end casino chips from that book on the website.

High-end casino chips are known to be rare and a small amount exist of each. They are sought after by casino chip collectors all across the world. We will have numerous volumes of this newsletter/blog over the next few months.

These volumes will list the high-end chips in alphabetical order for sale. Below, you will see our high-end casino chips from Aladdin, Bingo Palace, Bank Club and numerous others.

Speaking of the Aladdin, this week was the anniversary of the implosion of the famous Las Vegas Strip resort. The implosion happened on April 27, 1998.

So, without further interruption, you can find our first set of high-end casino chips below now listed on our website for sale. You can purchase each chip by clicking the picture:

Ebay Auctions ending this weekend:

We have some cool Ebay auctions ending this weekend. You can find all of them by clicking the chip picture below:

With millions staying home for now, we wanted to give you a few books you can read and purchase from us.

If you are a chip collector, it’s always good to compare chip information from one Chip Rack edition to another. The 11th Edition of the Chip Rack can be bought for only $5.00. You can purchase it clicking the picture below:

If you are playing craps at home or trying to improve your game, our Craps Wagering Strategies Book with Chart will help you. The book focuses on data from over 2100 rolls of the dice. It’s only $18.95. It can be bought clicking the picture below:

At some point this year, people will be in casinos once more. The American Casino Guide will tell you about every casino in America. There’s also plenty of gaming, food and entertainment coupons to make the $19.95 price a true bargain. You can buy it clicking the picture below:

If you bought some tokens from our new collection we listed online last week, you may want to check out this Nevada Gaming Tokens Book. It’s a comprehensive list of gaming tokens in Nevada. You can purchase it clicking the picture below:

If you collect dice throughout the state of Nevada, you may want this dice guide book that focuses on small town casinos in Nevada. There are no dice listings from Las Vegas or Reno in this book. You can find more information and purchase it clicking the picture below:

Finally, some cool poker/card rules books for only $1.00 each and a WSOP Zombie Comic Book for $3.95. You can buy any of these clicking the picture of each item below as well:

In continuing with our Las Vegas History Series, this week we wanted to focus on the Riviera Hotel and Casino. Below, you will see our chip collection from there that includes a ton of casino chips for sale we just got online for you this weekend.

Before we get to that, here’s some history about the Riviera Hotel and Casino. In the early days of the Riviera coming to life, there were different mob and illegal gambling syndicates that included William Bischoff and Samuel Cohen who were involved. 

This week, the Riviera celebrated its 65^th anniversary. It opened up on April 20^th, 1955. The two men who were the architects on the Riviera were from Miami. One can imagine that parts of the Riviera’s original hotel structure were modeled after the Miami Beach hotels of that era. Speaking of that, there is a Riviera Hotel South Beach still open today by coincidence. In the world of high-rise hotels in Las Vegas history, it was the first to have nine stories.

The 1950s was part of the early era of resident performers on the Las Vegas Strip. Liberace would become the Riviera’s first resident performer in its history. He was actually at the ribbon cutting ceremony for the resort and hotel when it opened. This era was an exciting time for Las Vegas because the Dunes Hotel and Casino and the Moulin Rouge Hotel and Casino also opened during this time period.

As we mentioned earlier, the casino had mob characters involved. There were wise guys who embezzled money and reported skims occurred. In 1960s Las Vegas, this was a very common thing as mobsters were heavily involved in different casinos on the Las Vegas Strip that also included the Stardust, Tropicana and Fremont.

At the end of the 1960s, Dean Martin became the resort’s headliner and was even given an ownership stake in the Riviera. When the Rat Pack member departed the resort in the 1970s, the Riviera bought back his ownership. There were many financial woes throughout the history of the Riviera. The resort and casino filed bankruptcy numerous times.

When focusing on some of the great moments of the Riviera, one of its most iconic moments is that it was the casino where much of the 1995 Martin Scorsese film Casino was filmed. Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci and Sharon Stone spent time filming many of the great scenes of the move at the Riviera. Sharon Stone won a Golden Globe for her role in the film as Ginger.

Many other movies and entertainment projects including Diamonds are Forever, The Hangover and 21 had scenes filmed in the Riviera as well. It can be challenging to get approval to film in a Las Vegas casino. However, the Riviera was always more than welcoming of the opportunity to let Hollywood in its doors. The last film that used the Riviera as a backdrop was the Matt Damon film Jason Bourne that took place in 2016 when a truck crashes through the front doors of the resort.

Many longtime visitors to Las Vegas liked the resort even at the end of its existence. It made them feel like they were in one of the casinos of an earlier Las Vegas era. The Riviera also was the first casino to have a fast food restaurant when a Burger King was installed at the resort. This would be the beginning of a trend that other casinos would follow known as the Burger King Revolution. Some of the biggest billiard tournaments in the world were held at the Riviera as well. 

In the world of entertainment, the resort featured a show called Crazy Girls. It is the longest running burlesque show in America. Today, the show takes place at the Planet Hollywood Hotel and Casino. It moved after the Riviera closed. Female impersonator Frank Marino also performed in a drag show at the Riviera called An Evening at La Cage. He is considered a Vegas entertainment legend. He currently hosts the veteran Las Vegas show Legends in Concert at the Tropicana Hotel and Casino. He has been performing on the Las Vegas Strip since 1985.

In 2015, the Las Vegas Convention Center acquired the Riviera and all the area around the property.  The intentions were to expand the Las Vegas Convention Center into something called the Las Vegas Convention Center District and demolish the resort. The last day the Riviera was opened was May 4, 2015.

There were two demolitions that took place in June and August of 2016. Below you can see pictures of the latest construction of the Las Vegas Convention Center construction where the Riviera use to be below:

Below you will find our new chip collection listed for the first time on our website from the Riviera. You can purchase each chip by clicking the picture of it below:

Riviera Dice:

Additionally, if you are interested in Riviera dice, we have two different styles. You can purchase either clicking the pictures below. They are only $7.95 a pair:

 Riviera on Ebay:

We have many different items from the Riviera on Ebay that aren’t listed on the website. You can find our Riviera casino collection on Ebay for sale clicking the picture below:

Riviera Door Sign:

If you haven’t stopped by Spinettis recently, you would not have seen one of the door signs we have from the front of the Riviera. The price for the sign is $999. If you are interested, send me an email to marketing@spinettis.com.

With most collectors in the casino gaming memorabilia world home and expanding their collections, today we wanted to let everyone know we’ve put a brand new set of casino tokens on our website for sale. There has never been a better time to start a casino token collection if you already haven’t. Most of these tokens are only $2 or $3. You can purchase each token clicking the picture of each token below:

Additionally, we have some new casino token items on Ebay you can purchase below clicking each picture:

Finally, this guide book for Nevada tokens may go very well with your token collection. You can purchase it clicking the picture below:

This week, we are going to focus on our first edition of casino chip mold history. Much of our information was gathered through Antique Gambling Chips, Chip Guide and a few other sources. We will have numerous editions of this series in the coming months. Our video producer Oscar made a video about these chips we are talking about. You can watch it at the bottom of this piece. So, let’s begin below.

Small Crown: People today will immediately think of TR King when they think of the small crown mold chips. The mold was popular in the state of Nevada beginning in the 1950s through the end of the 1970s. The TR King chip company goes all the way back to the end of the 1920s. Reportedly small crown was a popular mold for many California casinos. Below, find two chips from the El Rancho Vegas and Nevada Club. You can purchase either clicking each picture of the chip.

Large Crown: Also owned by TR King, this mold was popular from the end of 1930s through the 1960s. Though not as seen or talked about as much in the chip community, the large crown chips are part of the early days of legalized gaming history in Nevada. The Bank Club Reno, which was one of the first casinos to get a gaming license in Nevada, used the small crown chip mold for some of their chips. You can see two examples below and purchase either by clicking the picture.

Hat and Cane: The history of this mold is long and in-depth because you have an era that belongs to Christy and Jones and then the more famous Paulson chips that we still see in casinos today. According to Antique Gambling Chips, the Christy and Jones Company existed from 1955 to 1965. Unlike Paulson chips, Christy and Jones chips reportedly have metal pellets inside those chips. All across the United States, you will see Paulson hat and cane chips everywhere. Two of our favorite hat and cane chips are from the Stardust. You can see those chips below and purchase either by clicking the picture.

House Mold Chips: We are going to talk about the Paulson version in this newsletter. Reportedly, they rose to popularity in the 1960s. Some of the most popular house mold chips in Las Vegas history come from the Sands and Dunes. They are also available in plastic besides your normal casino chip material. See one of our favorite Sands and Dunes chips that are house mold. You can purchase each clicking the picture below:

Horseshoe Mold: Binion’s Horseshoe Club in Las Vegas used this mold on their chips from the 1960s to 1980s. Reportedly they were seen on casino chips from the 1950s to the early 2000s.  It’s likely the mold will never be used again. You can see two of our favorite casino chips from Binion’s Horseshoe Club below. You can purchase them by clicking the chip picture.

Unicorn Mold: Has been used all across the world. Reportedly, it can still be used today by the Game on Chip Company as plastic chips. Find two examples below from the Horseshoe Club and Reserve Hotel and Casino. You can purchase either clicking the chip picture.

Small Key Mold: From the 1930s through decades that followed, this mold was used in many casinos. Many of the earliest casinos in Las Vegas in the 1950s including El Rancho Vegas and the Moulin Rouge used small key chips. Supposedly in the early 1990s, there were still small chip companies making small key chips. Find below a chip from the Moulin Rouge and El Rancho Vegas that are small key chips. You can purchase either clicking the picture below.

Large Key Mold: Started in the 1960s and were made throughout the 1980s. But like the small key mold, a small chip company was offering to make these chips in the 1990s. Binion’s Horseshoe in Las Vegas had some large key mold chips. You can see below two examples of large key mold chips and purchase them clicking the picture.

You can watch our YouTube video on these chip molds clicking the picture below:

As many of you continue to be at home, we want to keep your spirit up. The Las Vegas Strip will no doubt open up again one day soon and the action and sounds of the hotels and casinos will occur once more.

Today, we are featuring Las Vegas Strip hotel and casino playing cards that were used for blackjack, baccarat and other table games. If you haven’t already, starting a Las Vegas casino card collection is very affordable. You could also decide to play some of your favorite games at home with them.

Below, we feature cards from 20 Las Vegas Strip casinos. Some decks start as low as $1.50 and the highest priced is $10. We are displaying them in the order of starting at the beginning of the North Strip and going all the way to the end of the South Strip.

Please take note that our Stratosphere cards tribute the now named The Strat and our Sahara Cards are from the first installment of the Sahara.

You can purchase each deck by clicking the picture below: