University of Nevada, Reno Reno at the Races
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University of Nevada, Reno Reno at the Races: The Sporting Life versus Progressive Reform A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History By Emerson Marcus Dr. William D. Rowley/Thesis Advisor May 2015 THE GRADUATE SCHOOL We recommend that the thesis prepared under our supervision by EMERSON MARCUS Entitled Reno At The Races: Sporting Life Versus Progressive Reform be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS William D. Rowley, Ph.D., Advisor Elizabeth Raymond, Ph.D., Committee Member Greta de Jong, Ph.D., Committee Member Alicia Barber, Ph.D., Graduate School Representative David W. Zeh, Ph. D., Dean, Graduate School May, 2015 i Abstract The thesis examines horse race betting in the state of Nevada from 1915 to 1931 and how two opposing forces — sporting life and progressive reform — converged as state lawmakers passed progressive gambling legislation. While maybe not a catalyst, this legislation began Nevada’s slippery slope to becoming a wide-open gambling state. It examines how the acceptance of horse race betting opened the door for more ambitious forms of gambling while other states eventually followed Nevada’s lead and passed similar horse race betting law during the Great Depression. While other western states followed suit and legalized horse race betting during the Great Depression, month-long race meetings in Reno disbanded, as Nevada opened itself to wide-open gambling. ii Table of Contents Acknowledgments iii I. Introduction 1 II. Gamblers, Turfites, Sports in a Changing State 8 From the Shadow of the Comstock 13 Crisis on the Turf 24 A True Sport 33 III. Nevada: The Sport’s “Only Hope” 43 Prying the Door Open: Horse Race Gambling 45 Oddie’s Governorship, Women’s Suffrage and Reform 50 The “Three Liberal Measures” of the 1915 Legislature 57 The “Loosening” of Nevada Reform 65 IV. Excitement to Obscurity: Horse Racing in Reno 75 Nostalgic Yearnings: Sporting and Gambling Culture 80 Reno at the Races: A Legal Bet 88 Horse Racing Spectacles Leave Reno 96 V. Conclusion 103 Bibliography 108 iii Acknowledgements This thesis would not have been possible without help from several people. Michael Maher and Karalea Clough at the Nevada Historical Society deserve recognition for helping me through George Wingfield’s correspondence collection. Elizabeth Raymond, Greta de Jong, Alicia Barber, Edan Strekal, Ryan Powell, Guy Clifton, Phil Earl, Jeff Kintop, Karl Breckenridge, Donnelyn Curtis and Michael Fischer also deserve recognition. William D. Rowley, my advisor, introduced me to my thesis topic and encouraged my work. He helped me immensely along the way. Most importantly, my wife, Sarah Marcus, motivated me and tolerated my absence during many late nights spent researching and writing. 1 Chapter One Introduction Walter Van Tilburg Clark’s 1945 novel City of Trembling Leaves describes horse races at the fairgrounds in Reno during the interwar years as chaotic spectacles where even young children gambled and cultivated a “terrible racing instinct.”1 In 1923, a 30- day Reno race meeting generated more than $1 million in legal bets (more than $1.7 million for the entire year).2 Harper’s Magazine called horse racing in 1925 “the most exciting feature of Reno social life.”3 From 1915 to 1931, horse racing in Reno regularly brought thousands of “beautifully gowned women and racing enthusiasts” to play the ponies.4 Through the pari-mutuel system, regulated horse race betting opened a wedge in the state’s strict 1909 anti-gambling law. During this time of legal betting at the track, Nevada developed an economy that attracted visitors from outside its borders — the origins of its tourist-based economy. While other western states followed suit and legalized horse race betting during the Great Depression, month-long race meetings in Reno ended, and Nevada opened itself to wide-open gambling. While rarely lucrative, promoters held summer and fall races meetings for nearly two decades in Reno because of the state’s permissive stance on betting at the track. Nevada Governor Emmet Derby Boyle signed legislation into law in 1915 that allowed and regulated horse race betting under the pari-mutuel system with the oversight of a 1 Walter Van Tilburg Clark, The City of Trembling Leaves, (New York: Random House, 1945), 70. 2 Nevada State Journal, July 13, 1923; The Nevada Racing Commission’s Annual Report. [Signed by George Wingfield], (Carson City State Printing Office, 1923). 3 Katharine Fullerton Gerould, The Aristocratic West. (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1925), 155. 4 Reno Evening Gazette, June 9, 1923 2 Nevada Racing Commission. In October 1915, a Kentucky thoroughbred racing publication noted Nevada, Maryland and Kentucky as the only states regulating pari- mutuel betting, along with Canada.5 The track remained a popular gathering for Reno’s business community, gamblers, divorce seekers, sporting men and out-of-state visitors with wagers in hand in the 1920s, but that quickly changed in the 1930s.6 California approved pari-mutuel betting in 1933. Ohio, Michigan and other states, including New York, did so by the end of the 1930s (thirty states around the nation allowed forms of pari-mutuel betting by 1974).7 By the early twenty-first century, horse racing in Nevada remained relegated to small casino sports book televisions playing far-off horse races for a gambling public.8 In 2014, California Chrome won the first two legs of the Triple Crown at the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes, gaining national attention and delighting his Topaz Lake, Nevada owner, Steven Coburn. The Reno Gazette-Journal ran several stories on Chrome before the horse lost at the Belmont Stakes, coming one step short of becoming the first Triple Crown winner since Affirmed in 1978. One regional news story examined horse racing history in Nevada, reporting that the “only real thoroughbred history in Nevada belongs to Theodore Winters,” the wealthy owner of a freight line to the Comstock and a ranch in Washoe Valley.9 While the historiography of Nevada tends to focus on the state’s vice economy through the lens of casino gambling, prostitution, 5 “Advancement of Racing by Pari-Mutuel Betting,” The Thoroughbred Record, 82, (October 16, 1915), 186. 6 Reno Evening Gazette, July 19, 1920. 7 U.S. Congress, Commission on the Review of the National Policy Toward Gambling Hearings on Pari- Mutuel Horseracing. [Held March 4 and March 5, 1975], (Washington, D.C.: National Technical Information Service, U.S. Department of Commerce, 1975). 8 Eric Moody. “The Early Years of Casino Gambling in Nevada, 1931-1945.” Diss. University of Nevada, Reno (1997), 296. 9 Reno Gazette-Journal, May 31, 2014. 3 easy divorce and marriage, many historians and journalists have often overlooked horse race betting’s impact in the state’s evolving policy leading up to its “wide-open” gambling law in 1931. A closer examination shows horse race betting was far less accepted nationally during the Progressive Era — some say even under attack — when Nevada enacted its track betting law in 1915. Additionally, the sport and betting at the track reached deeper into Reno’s past than the newspaper alleged in 2014.10 In 1915, Nevada’s acceptance of horse racing betting began in spite of attacks upon its association with gambling. As horse racing commercialized in the United States by the end of the nineteenth century, tracks increasingly became dependent on bookmaker licensing fees. By 1910, anti-gambling laws across the country led to the closing of racetracks from the Belmont Stakes in New York to the old Santa Anita track in California. To save the sport, many state legislators discussed pari-mutuel betting as a progressive form of gambling where bettors bet against themselves, not a bookmaker, with odds created based on the quantity of bets on a particular horse. In Nevada in 1915, sporting types in favor of pari-mutuel legislation included businessmen, ranchers, saloon owners, gamblers and former miners seeking to loosen the reins of reform, especially moral reform. They sought an amendment to the legislature’s 1909 anti-gambling law that prohibited more than 20 card games for money as felonies including horse race bookmaking and slot machines — even making the possession of a deck of cards punishable by fine.11 The pari-mutuel system of betting at the state-owned Reno fairgrounds offered an avenue to roll back strict anti-gambling legislation with a 10 Mary Jean Wall, How Kentucky Became Southern: A Tale of Outlaws, Horse Thieves, Gamblers and Breeders, (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2010), 174. 11 Moody, “Nevada, 1931-1945,” 21. 4 different method of betting that arguably complied with many of the goals of progressive reform. One prominent Nevadan said the pari-mutuel system “is fair and gives the patron a chance” and eliminated dishonest bookmakers.12 The commission took a percentage of all money bet — which funded track maintenance, personnel paychecks and a small cut for county road improvement projects — while the remaining funds in the betting pool paid winning tickets. Proponents argued racing would generate attention and revenue to fund racing events that determined the best racers through objective competition and, thus, improved the quality of horse breeding for the state’s ranching needs. Under this system of “fair” betting that provided state revenue for roads and encouraged improved horse stock for ranchers, Reno businessmen opened up Nevada’s strict 1909 anti- gambling law.13 The goals of Nevada’s sports and gamblers and those backing progressive reform blended in what could be described as progressive gambling legislation at a time when other western states discussed it, but kept it illegal under anti-gambling laws. Although the 1915 legislation passed in Nevada it appeased reformers by keeping the anti-gambling law in tact.