Legal gambling not even the top story of the day back in 1931

You’d be hard pressed to come up with a single action that shaped the future of Nevada more than Gov. Fred B. Balzar’s signing of the open-gambling bill on March 19, 1931.

Nevadans didn’t necessarily realize its significance at the time, though.

“The wide-open gambling bill, establishing licensed gambling in all forms in the state of Nevada, was passed by the senate late this afternoon by a vote of 13-3, one not voting,” read the story on the front page of the Las Vegas Evening Review and Journal on March 17.

It went on to say that the law would become effective as soon as it was signed by Balzar, although there was uncertainty as to when that would happen because he was ill at home.

The story took second billing that day to the merger of the existing Ferguson-Balcom and Las Vegas hospitals and the pending construction of a new 50-bed hospital at 12th and Stewart streets.

The following day, a story by the United Press — we didn’t yet have a Carson City bureau — reported that it could be days before the ailing governor signed the bill. As to the economics of the legislation, a license fee of $50 per table and $12.50 per handle for slot machines would be charged, with counties taking 50 percent of the money and the city and state each taking 25 percent.

That information was upstaged by a story about a prison riot in Joliet, Illinois.

On March 19, UP reported that while waiting for Gov. Balzar’s signature, Reno announced plans for casinos that “would outrival anything in the United States in splendor and gaming attractions.” The story concluded with reports from around the state that casinos “will lose no time in satisfying the supposed demand for wide-open games.”

Here’s the entirety of the March 20 report from the Associated Press announcing the start of legalized gambling: “Governor Fred B. Balzar returned to his office for a short time (yesterday) and one of his first official acts was to sign the newly enacted gambling bill which becomes effective immediately.”

That’s it.

That sentence got less play on that day’s front page than a story about two California teenagers who stole a Chevrolet coupe and drove it to Las Vegas, and even less than a brief about a car accident that cracked a store’s plate-glass window and smashed the tool box on one of the vehicle’s running boards. The bill’s signing was only slightly bigger news than the fact that Miss Marjorie Goodwin of Las Vegas was one of 42 honor students at Long Beach Junior College and that she was planning “to come home for a visit about April 4.”

Finally, on March 21, we reported that gaming would be “in full swing” later that night at several Las Vegas resorts. The day’s banner headline, though, concerned the investigation into a fire that had been set in a local storefront, damaging its stock.

Each weekday, Starting Point, the Review-Journal’s recently revamped free morning newsletter, takes a look back at a front page from that day in history. To subscribe, visit reviewjournal.com/email-alerts.