Cash still rolls into the count rooms. Some folks still bet the rent. But today, Harrah s is owned by a corporation and few have heard of the Bank Club. Harolds Club is a memory. The Mapes, imploded last year, is a vacant lot.
Slot machines are more likely to beep or talk than to clatter with the sound of metal gears.
It s a city of digital displays instead of hand-painted signs. Ceiling-mounted video cameras have replaced the guards on catwalks above the casino floors. The dealers are on the level and cheaters are prosecuted, not pummeled. But, if you know where to look in Reno s downtown core, the ghosts of seven decades of gambling whisper in the alleys and the specters of vanished buildings beckon. That was where the Owl Club was.