Gaming in Cuba
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Gaming in Cuba by Steve Piccolo The history of the style and impact Havana’s gaming was a free-for- These measures had scarcely had a of gaming in Cuba has a clearly all - no more regulated than a fair- chance to work, however, when, at defined point of transition. Cuba had ground whose operator subcontracted the end of March 1953, the Saturday gained a reputation as the playground the individual sideshows and stalls. Evening Post ran an expose’ head- of the eastern United States in the The Cuban owners of the city’s night- lined on its cover, “Suckers in 1920’s that continued into the 1930’s clubs were leasing out their gaming Paradise: How Americans Lose Their with evidence of the effects of the rooms - and sometimes even individ- Shirts in Caribbean Gambling Joints.” depression. With the commencement ual games and tables - to just about The author of the article, Lester Velie, of World War II, Cuba as a play- anyone who claimed to have a had been on a thorough tour of ground destination, suffered from the bankroll to risk. Some were serious, Havana’s nightspots. All, he reported, war on the high seas and the lack of professional operators. But had less had succumbed to the operators of commercial shipping which was experience - and less bankroll. The razzle-dazzle, cubolo, and the come- being diverted to the war effort. With come-on games like cubolo were the on games, and must now be consid- the termination of the conflict in result of this. They offered quick ered “bust out” joints - or fraudulent. Europe and soon the ending of hostil- returns on minimal investments. Nor were the traditional casino games ities in the Pacific, Cuba awaited Stories proliferated of gullible above suspicion. only the mending of the American American tourists being cheated by economy to resume its position as the smiling and plausible dealers - some Most dealers in Havana were deal- playground of the Eastern seaboard. Cuban, but many American - who ing blackjack from a hand-held pack, In March 1952, Fulgencio Batista brought the cards and dice to their which was open to manipulation, made himself president of Cuba for table, and who took their money off rather than from a box, which had the second time. Batista, who ruled them as they ate. ‘The President of long been the standard practice in Cuba from 1933 to 1944 made the the Republic,” announced the Havana America. In the length and breadth of mistake of offering his government to Herald on February 10, 1953, “has Havana the reporter could discover the approval of the country in a given definitive instructions to the only two locations where the gam- national election and lost. Batista various police forces to intensify bling was honest. One was the so- resided in Florida for a period of time measures of protection for foreign called “louse ring” underneath the following his democratic defeat. tourists.” It was “unprecedented,” grandstand at the Oriental Park horse Cuba was not doing that badly, in said the newspaper, for the president track, where Cubans gambled with fact, when Batista again seized power to express himself personally on this Cubans for modest stakes. The other in the spring of 1952. Havana had a subject, and he had dispatched the was at the very opposite end of the claim to being the world’s premier minister of the interior on a tour of scale - the Montmartre Club, a luxuri- play city - the Paris of the New Havana’s gaming rooms to look out ous, plush-and-glit, third floor estab- World, swaying to the rhythms of its for fraudulent multidice games like lishment a few blocks away from the rumbas and sambas and mambos, cubolo and razzle-dazzle, a variant on Nacional Hotel in downtown Havana. which it exported to Europe and the theme. The Cuban Tourist The operation of the Montmartre’s America via a dozen white-tuxedoed Commission even had a form printed gaming tables had recently been orchestras, the hottest dance bands which authorized visitors who taken over by Meyer Lansky. The anywhere on earth. The one problem believed that they had been cheated serious high-rollers knew cheating was the gambling. to stop payment on their checks. when they saw it, and there was no 28 CASINO CHIP AND TOKEN NEWS | April · May · June 2004 suggestion of sleight-of-hand or dreams for Cuba had been tested in Meyer Lansky to become his advisor come-on games in the Montmartre southern Nevada beginning with his on gambling reform, and to carry out, Club. To the contrary, thanks to former partner Bugsy Siegel’s ven- on a larger scale, a cleanup job like Meyer Lansky, honestly conducted ture with the Flamingo Hotel. the one he had performed so effec- high-stakes gambling was still alive Following Siegel’s death in 1946, the tively at the racetrack and at the Gran and well in one corner of Havana, at Flamingo’s operation was perfected Casino Nacional in the late 1930’s. least. by others and as additional casinos Lansky might be an outlaw in were established on the strip, their America, but in Cuba he was wel- Batista’s return to power was the action and return on investment was comed as the man who knew how to singularly most influential event in verified. To have “Las Vegas” style put things straight. Cuban gaming as it signals the begin- gaming in not only an unregulated ning of the rise of Cuban casinos to environment but to have the only Fulgencio Batista saw the international reputation and the “regulator”, the government, firmly enhancement of revenues from for- founding of an empire of “Las Vegas” bound by a friendship of mutual ben- eign visitors, and from Americans in style casino action. Meyer Lansky’s efit was ideal. President Batista invited particular, as a major source of future income for Cuba - and for himself. With the development of hotel chains and airline travel in the early 1950’s, tourism was just starting to be seen as an industry in its own right, and the new president enthusiastically endorsed it as a priority of his new regime. One of his first actions was to reorganize the old National Tourism Corporation - “to assist and stimulate private enterprise,” as Batista later wrote. Cuba’s climate and beaches, its proximity to New York and Miami, “the striking beauty of our women,” and “the traditional hospitality of our people” were all assets that were sadly undeveloped, in the opinion of the new president. He simplified entry regulations so that Americans could spend up to a month in Cuba without needing a visa and could also bring their private cars and boats with them. At Barlovento, to the west of Havana, canals were planned for a marina- housing development, with a view to luring the investment of Floridian boaters who lived in similar develop- ments in Miami and Fort Lauderdale. And when it came to gambling, it was Batista’s ambition, with the help of Meyer Lansky, to turn Havana into the Monte Carlo of the Caribbean. The first priority was to flush out the CASINO CHIP AND TOKEN NEWS | April · May · June 2004 29 crooked gambling subcontractors. The only casino operator in Havana for whom Meyer had any respect was Santo Trafficante, Jr., son of the num- bers boss of Tampa, Florida. Trafficante, ten years younger than Meyer, had been operating in Cuba since 1946. Quiet of manner, with a crew cut and spectacles that gave him the air of a college professor, Trafficante went about his business conservatively. Meyer also knew, and had less respect for Norman Rothman, the Sans Souci gaming room operator. Meyer warned Rothman, in so many words, “You run clean, otherwise, you can’t oper- ate,” and the Sans Souci stopped its program of come-on games. But other dishonest croupiers, many of them Americans, continued to operate on a free-lance basis. They had been American embassy was able to close resemblance to the Breakers Hotel in approaching victims away from the its file on the subject. The last com- Palm Beach, whose architect it gaming tables - in restrooms, even - plaint about dishonest Cuban gam- shared, and Lansky’s scheme was to with their card shuffles and dice bling practices dated from the spring take over a wing of the Nacional and games that a sucker “just could not of the previous year, at the same time refurbish it with luxury suites for lose.” On March 30, 1953 - two days as the Saturday Evening Post article, high-stakes players, a deluxe after the Saturday Evening Post and referred to an incident that had Caribbean version of the formula expose’ - Cuban military intelligence happened the previous New Year’s which Las Vegas had been developing arrested thirteen such cardsharps, all Eve. so successfully since the death of American, and immediately deported Benny Siegel. eleven of them. Meyer Lansky’s Montmartre Club remained the premier destination for This idea did not accord with the Cuban gaming opened up for the high rollers. The Montmartre did not habits of Havana’s American colony, winter season of 1954-55 in its have floor shows or ambience to who used the rambling gardens and reformed state. Blackjack everywhere match the under-the -stars nightclubs corridors of the Nacional as some- was dealt from a box, not from the of the garden suburbs, but it did have thing of an expatriate club. A few hand. Floor men became “ladder Lansky’s table crews, and that attract- yards along the Malecon, the sea men,” hoisted up to sit in little jockey ed the best players.