The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1931-03-25
RENO'S GAMING
CASINOS DRAW
FLOW OF GOLD
Women, GoWned Richly,
Elbow Places to Bars
and Gaming Tables.
n, uanv ~ rur-
BY EARL H. LEFT
Press stan Correspondent

RENO, New, March 25.-At 3
this morning most Of the residents
of this biggest little city in the
world" we're asleep, but outside the
city limits gaiety reached its height
IN half dozen wide open" resorts.
In the brightly lighted casinos
catering to divorce colonists, the
crowds milled about roulette wheels,
faro banks and card tables, tossing
chins on numbers that caught their
iaicy or idly watching the play.
Walters hustled about bearing
trays occasionally holding food, but
mostly bottles and glasses. They
darted across postage stamp dance
floors, scurried nimbly through
crowds in the gambling rooms and
elbowed up to bars with their or
ders.
Lining the bars, facing old-time
partenders in white coats, we're ex-
pensively gowned women and for
mally attired men slipping cocktails
and highballs.
AS the dance music started they
crowded to the floor, taking up
where a woman blues crooner had
left off.
Due in Court Today
Many Of the men and women in
the crowd were due in court today
TO tell it to the divorce judge
and couple Of tables from the
dance floor sat the judge.
Everywhere we're heard unders
tones of conversation about the de-
feat Of matrimony, for here in the
land OF easy divorce, the Eek" wife
or husband usually is the main
topic OF conversation.
Divorces are. easier now since
passage of the new six-weeks resi-
dence period, Melvin Jepson dis
trict attorney of Reno, has helped
100 by ruling that persons now re-
siding IN the state may seek their
divorces May l, making the law re-
troactiye six weeks.
Excitement reached its highest
pitch in the gaming rooms, where
the crowds play openly and for any
stakes they choose by virtue OF the
new state law which legalizes
gambling In all its forms.
Already casinos have their
habitues who nightly have tried
their luck against the wheel Of for
tune.
Loses $4,000 a Week
p One woman, bending over the
green ba' table, is the wife of a
wealthy insurance magnate.
She has spent $4,000 a week for
the last four weeks at The Willows
resort, bringing a specified sum
each night and playing until it is
gone-and Il usually is.
Others at The Willows tell of
the middle-aged woman of high
Social standing who lost a huge sum
last Saturday night at roulette.
Later she begged the management
TO return a portion of her losses, as
She was penniless. She was given
A loan.
This picture of strange contrasts
occurs nightly here amid the
Nevada sage brush
The resorts are all alike, equipped
With long bars and shining mirrors
in one section, tiny dance floors in
another and gaming rooms in still
another.
AS to the free flow of thirst
quenchers, federal agents throw up
their hands.
Despairs of Enforcement
William G. Walker, prohibition
administrator for California and
Nevada, a native of this state who
once played in brass band in the
town of Austin, despairs of ever at
tanning any degree of aridity.
p Pawnshop proprietors in Reno
could, If they choose, tell many
stories of the wives of wealthy men
haggling over the loan value of Jew
elry because their allowances drifted
over the gambling tables, and the
next allowance not due for several
days.
In downtown Reno, where gam
blers permit only men to play, it
smacks of the old west. In the ex-
.pensive resorts outside the city,
Reno CovetS the glory of the Riviera.