Part of the dispute about the match has to do with the year. Some have written 1949. Some have written 1951 and listed the match at Binion's Horseshoe. The Horseshoe opened in 1951.

I believe the big poker game happened in 1949, because of dramatic things going on in Benny Binion's and all gambler's lives in 1950 and 1951.

The Senate Kefauver Hearings into gambling and organized crime were held in 15 cities in 1950, 1951, including Dallas and Las Vegas. Benny Binion's Dallas operations became a target. When the committee came to Vegas, Benny hid out and did not testify as requested. Ray Ryan fled to Europe. These hearings caused the mob and Dave Berman to ask Benny to tone down his epic struggle with Cat Binion. In 1950, reformers in Texas were taking over, and they vowed to extradite Benny to face mounting charges. He was in trouble at the state, federal levels, and in the press most of all.

In Dallas, there were the first felony gambling indictments, facing Benny and many of his men, and the first Internal Revenue indictments. Benny left a paper and bank account trail to the policy wheels.

The Internal Revenue Charges on Benny were for failure to report income from 1946 to 1949, and came after the match in 1949, but was good reason to keep quiet about wins. A Texas Legislative Committee was also holding hearings on gambling in 1950. Paul Harvey, with Benny a one-third partner in his Odessa, Texas operations, testified and ended his friendship with Benny. In 1950, gambling operations were being closed down in Dallas, some controlled by Benny.

Fort Worth was going through a battle of two gangs of gamblers for control. One were Benny's men. One were men aligned with but not controlled by Cat Noble. Several people were killed.

In late 1949, the Cat Noble feud was getting too much press. Cat did not use Binion's name, but he would say a man 1500 miles from here, out west, keeps trying to kill him.

Attempts on the Cat's life went on from 1946 until August 7, 1951. In November of 1949, Cat Noble's wife was killed in a car bomb meant for him. R.D. Matthews, Binion's man, was arrested, and released for lack of evidence. Benny was trying to sell the Las Vegas Club. It is way amazing the number of murderers that got off. The Cat didn't use Benny's name but he said Benny killed his wife. He swore vengeance and went rather crazy. On December 31, 1949, another attempt was made on Noble's life. At the hospital a map of Benny's Las Vegas home and surrounding area were found in Noble's clothes. Benny's contacts in the police department mailed him a copy. Another attempt was made on the Cat by a sniper when he was in the hospital. It was then Dave Berman, speaking for the mob, spoke with Binion about all the publicity. When law enforcement found Cat Noble with an airplane rigged with bombs and again the map of Benny's home, they did nothing to him. He was talking to the law and letting them bug some conversations, and killing or getting killed some of Binion's men.
When the Cat was killed, it was in Time, Life, and Newsweek. The Texas Rangers believed that 42 men and 1 woman had tried to kill or tried to hire someone to kill Cat Noble.

This mostly comes from Gary Sleeper's book. The prices on the hit were $10,000 up to a high of $50,000 for a three guys or so. In Fraianno's F.B.I. sanctioned lies, he said Benny offered 25 per cent of a new downtown Las Vegas casino to the mob if they'd kill Russian Louie. With millions at stake, it took a long time and Benny going to see Mafia guys.

Three more solid reasons to believe the match took place in 1949, were Moss always said so, and Nick the Greek's biographer said he got broke that year. That was the year the Greek played his big match with Ray Ryan which is well documented.

Nolan Dalla wrote:

I consider Johnny Hughes to be the William Manchester of poker historians. With Hughes—no task is too burdensome, and no detail is trivial. He flat out gets the story. His writings are a testament to an era of Americana that is as rich as the Old West.

Johnny...close. Dave Berman was upset because of Benny having a bigger crap game than the strip casinos. He wanted Benny to be more in line with their limits and Meyer had to mediate the dispute before a war started.

And as I pointed out in my previous posts Benny got "mafia" heat about the war while still in Dallas and that played a role in his move along with Decker losing the election.

As far as Ft. worth goes Benny was at best a minor investor there and did not have the power he had in Dallas, Odessa or Sherman. I know he had small pieces of the best spots there but was an outsider. i forgot who the main players were who were at war but will find it out. From what I heard Benny did have an interest however in the outcome as he planned to move in after the war decimented the other groups. Kind of a Sun Tzu Art of War stratergy! Very smart.

vegas skip...Have you ever read any books on poker history??? Benny was huge and secretive in Ft. Worth. Read about Top of the Hill. Benny loaned the owner large sums, and was in control.Total control. It says that over and over. It had 46 acres, an electric fence, a guard post on the gate. Double doors with guards, an escape tunnel. A guard on horseback patroled the grounds, with a rifle. A sign that said to check your pistols. It had roulette, craps, pool tables, 19 dealers. Some of the richest people in the metroplex went there. H.L. Hunt, Sid Richardson, and Howard Hughes played there, three of the richest men in the whole world. When Mr. Brown the owner died, he owed Benny a lot and Richardson settled for several horses for the debts owed him. Benny said that Howard Hughes didn't lose much. It was fancier than anything much in Vegas at the time. All the food and drink were free. Get Gary Sleeper's excellent book or a book by Ann Archer that you mentioned earlier. That is also bull about Berman and the limits. Benny had the largest limits from 1946 on. Ray Ryan came in and shot $40,000 and won and let it ride for $80,000 and lost. Benny never backed down on the limits.
The main guys in Ft. Worth, Wildering and Tiffin were Binion men and fronts. He had several of his men in Ft. Worth. He also owned a big piece of the 2222 with the Kirkwood's. I wonder how he got it? Muscle. Benny wanted to keep his Ft. Worth operations secret because Amon Carter, Ft. Worth newspaper owner, and huge boss, hated him. As Dallas was shutting down, Ft. Worth was still wide open, but only for awhile.

vegasskip is getting his information from the stupid Kennedy assassination books which need for everyone in Dallas gambling and law enforcement to be in on it.

Johnny Hughes I like your stories, they're entertaining and fun to read.

With that being said, I'm much younger than you and obviously didn't live around those times, but why do you glorify people like Benny Binion so much? From what I read he seemed to be a horrible person in every regard, he was involved in the killings of so many people, maybe often times at his own hands. If he got more power than he already had, he'd have been a ruthless dictator with no regard for human life.

What kind of scumbag sends some mafia to carbomb someone's wife? Probably the worst well known poker player/casino owner. you know, that's stuff that should stay in movies, not in real life.

Acording to Gary Sleeper's definitive book on the gambling wars, Benny's men in Ft. Worth included Tiffin Hill, George Wilderspin, Fred Merril, and Chuck Flournoy. The Texas Rangers interviewed Benny in 1951 in Las Vegas. A transcript of that interview is in Sleeper's book. Binion denied having interests at this time in Dallas, but said he did have money in Ft. Worth and admitted that Wildering was his man. Binion told the Rangers about high stakes gambling at no limit such as Ray Ryan shooting $40,000, then $80,000.

Binion's man at Top of the Hill was Chili McWillie who had run the dice games at the Southland Hotel in in Dallas. He later went to Cuba and later to Binion's in Vegas. Sleeper wrote that Ft.Worth was divided into two factions, Benny Binion's, including Top of the Hill, numbers, crap games, the Eastside Club, and the 3939 club, and craps at several hotels.

Johnny...I have probally read more books and talked with more people involved in that era than you. And I have a good filter of weeding out the BS and forming what most likley happened instead of relying on the principles own versions. I stand by what I said about Benny and Ft. Worth. And for the record I have no interest in JFK and the assisination and have never read a single book on the subject.

Kind of funny a couple pages back I mention the feud with Berman, Benny's relationship with Lansky and that Cat was involved in the numbers racket. At first you dispute me then quote those facts later on as your doing. Kind of like on another thread you did the same about Moss dying broke until you found out I knew Johnny personally for close to 30 years.

What you should do is read all the conflicting reports and filter out the BS and come to the meat of what really most likley happened.

Yes Benny had the highest limits and that was Berman's problem...he wanted Benny to keep in line with everyone else and Benny would not.

And I already said he had a small piece of most places in Ft.Worth....just not the biggest piece. And as such he did have his men on the inside watching his investment.The Top of the Hill may have been the nicest casino in the states at the time. And you are right that Amos Carter did hate him.

vegas skip. We will get together when I am in Vegas and swap stories.

Cat Noble and Laudermilk decided they would go in to the numbers business. Shortly after that, Laudermilk was killed and Noble got quickly out of the numbers business and stayed out, and paid his 25 per cent to Benny. Then Benny wanted 40 per cent. Noble was nuts, and a meglomaniac. He thought he could become boss gambler with the Mafia's backing and they paid no attention to him. He may have hired a couple of minor free lance hitters to try to get Binion that had Mafia ties. After his wife was killed, Cat was crazy. He'd stay alone at his ranch, up all night on speed, relying on dalmations, chiuauas, and guine hens for an alarm. He fantacized taking over Dallas when Benny was on his way out. I think Cat killed two of the three men in on killing his wife.

The mob did come in and had always been in Dallas, but did not mess with Benny's policy or craps. Benny told the Texas Rangers that the mob was coming in after World War II but he refused to elaborate. He was out of there anyway, and his friends facing prison, as was he. If Benny was fleeing the Mafia, the last place to go would be Las Vegas, because they thought it was their town. Benny was a stone in their shoe, and always his own boss.

I think those Ft. Worth.Dallas killings in the 1946 to 1950 era were mostly to get even more than turf. Benny didn't order them, nor did Cat. I think Cat personally killed two or three people to get even for his wife and I believe the Texas Rangers knew it. Benny knew that the Cat planned to bomb Benny's family from the air. The Texas Rangers caught him with the plane and bomb and just took the bombs away. However, the Cat was crazy and the plan could not work. A lot of what these folks were fighting over was changing. Dice games were giving away to football betting. The numbers racket was taken over by the governments with lotteries.

With the oral history from UNLV, Benny would not talk about his teenage years in and out of El Paso, but I'd guess they were bootlegging from Juarez, Mexico, but Benny talked about bootlegging but said he would not tell of El Paso.

Benny may have alluded to the Cat Noble killing in the UNLV oral history. He said, "There's no way I'd harm anyone for any amount of money. But if anybody goes to talking about about doin' me bodily harm or my family bodily harm, I'm very capable ,thank God, of really taking care of 'em in a most artistic way."

I would love to meet and swap stories....Hell I even invited you to dinner via this forum a couple of years back for that purpose.

What you have posted above is correct.....and I think it to be accurate....because several pages back I said the same thing!

Despite the mob in Vegas he still could come here, despite they wanted him out of Dallas, because he was still respected by people such as Lansky. From what I've heard but do not know first hand he had to stay downtown and not expand onto the strip.

i have mentioned it before but i was there for the first world series. and was friends with those that had been around and saw the past events and those that had participated in them.
i also used to eat breakfast with benny and his wife every so often in the horsshoe casino. i was good friends with barbara also. and knew ted.

moss played the greek but i have no idea of the date as it was before i got to vegas. but they played for three or four months off and on. the game was in the front of the casino near the fremont street entrace, as it was also a tourist attraction. they let others in a few times. it was not a freeze out it was until one gave up. the others that got in lost big. you can make your own guesses why.

moss busted the greek out and the last day or close to the last one moss had racks of blacks from the floor up higher than the table. that was told by a friend who was there for most all of it as it was his responsibility to monitor the game.
what greek said is all conjecture. moss was a liar whenever it suited him.
few or none of those that tell about it were ever there.

i played moss headup seven stud a lot at the stardust in 1971, no one else got in the game even though it was open except for puggy once in awhile. moss talked much about the past with me as he used me to recollect his adventures. after moss quit me, puggy played me most days until he got a bunch of money from beating out a rich man in a hotel room. and my puny bankroll which he added to no longer interested him

Thanks, Vegas skip, and Ray Zee. I am glad to see Zee speak up. In reading several books this week, mostly going from the index to the parts I wanted, I've seen several weird things, especially on the Internet. One account said the mob and Dave Berman, who is said to have killed seven men, were mad at Benny for raising the Keno limits!!

When I first went to Vegas, 1960, I was told to stay away from the strip, which was controlled by varied mobs because they did not like Texans because of a dispute with Benny. We went anyway. My cousin who worked for the mob told them he was from Oklahoma, which was partially true.

The very first thing I heard about Benny versus the mob may not be altogether true. That was before I read anything. I still remember the exact quote, "Benny hired sixty hop heads off the Jacksboro Highway to sleep on the casino floor.." He meant gun men. I also heard which seems untrue that Benny told the Mafia that Texans didn't have any rules about killing. The mob didn't bother families or kill on Christmas, and the old neighborhood was off limits. I heard, and do not believe, that Benny said he'd send killers into Little Italy to kill their grandmothers on Christmas day. I do not believe that Benny or Dave Berman would threaten to kill one another directly in those words, but implications from either were heavy.

I also like that Ray Zee beat Moss at Zee's game when Moss was at the top of his form. He did play all games, but Hold 'em was his best. I played with him as a partner at auction bridge, the gambler's game, and he was terrible. Sarge Ferris, another hall of famer, got everyone to playing razz. I watched a big game with Moss and Sarge and others.in Longview of razz. Moss got off loser, and I "think" ended up winner, but he was cussing razz. As Doyle has written, and Ray Zee and vegas skip can confirm, Moss had a personality fit only for the poker table. He kidded and trash talked. He was unkind to dealears. Sometimes he wasn't all that nice to Virgie, and you know what I mean. When Texans kid and trash talk, it is repeated cliches that I have heard over fifty years.

As for Benny versus the Cat. However it started out, it was certain that one would kill the other. Benny was afraid of the Cat for damn good reason. The Cat was crazy and incredibly brave. He just walked up to outlaw joints and killed someone outside, the Texas Rangers believed. They could never prove anything, but they knew lots about all the characters, as the police called us, and we called ourselves. Benny was very forthcoming with the Texas Rangers in 1951 when he was in a plea bargain situation. With that and the extradition to Texas, Benny said truthfully that he feared for his life in Texas. He had that one man, the Cat, and whoever the Cat could hire trying to kill him, not for turf, but vengenence, a blood feud.

I went to my first World Series in 1975. Puggy rivaled Slim in attention seeking.

This thread just got even more interesting, that Ray Zee dropped in. Ray, Vegas Skip, and Johnny all on one page. Cool stuff guys.

Thanks to everyone. This is one of my all-time favorite threads.

http://wn.com/1973_World_Series_of_P...vs_Johnny_Moss

Here is a video of Johnny Moss vs Puggy Pearson in 1973, at the final table. This was the match Benny Binion described in his UNLV oral history that same year.

My issue with Johnny is that he says two diametrically opposed things and he claims both are correct.

I don't know what you mean. I did more and more research while I wrote this thread. They did not want publicity about the amount they won. The Greek drew crowds wherever he went to gamble. They enjoyed the crowds at the casino, but did not do any interviews about it.

When I first went to Las Vegas, 1960, at Binion's Horseshoe, they had 10 cent craps with a neon sign, right by the Fremont Street doors. It drew a crowd of 50, 70 or so people which spilled out unto the sidewalk. Downtown was kind of quiet, and Binion's had a crowd when other casinos did not. I never read a word about the 10 cent craps, but it drew folks. There was also a sign to watch you own bets because it was crowd. The early World Series really did not have that many people watching, and you could walk right up to the table.

I like your work very much including "Pretty in Pink" and "Breakfast Club."

Thanks so much. I enjoy your economic theories, but lately they are beginning to scare me. Doc T, what are you talking about? vegas skip is very knowledgable and has been around since Moby Dick was a sardine. I changed my mine a little on some minor points that had nothing to do with the debate on the big match and what year it took place. I think I have listed many reasons to believe that it was in 1949 for sure. I can't prove it, but I believe Johnny Moss won around two million over four or so months. Any reason not to believe the year???? Any real reason not to believe the amount????

...I have been trying to post a picture of Amarillo Slim and myself in front of Binion's display of $1,000,000 in $10,000 bills. I use it on facebook. The casino would provide 10 or so post card pictures. You had to walk to the back of the casino, and return in an hour. Many people did that including the Manson family.

I will share Nick the Greek stories, some I believe. Some I do not.
Moe Dalitz was showing the Prince of Wales, the man who had given up being King of England for the woman he loved, around the Desert Inn. He stopped to introduce him to Nick the Greek. Both said we have already met.

The Greek was shooting heads up craps with a big mobster and became afraid of the guy. The Greek told him he was going to bed, but he'd leave his money, and let the mobster shoot for both of them. Later the guy called to say, "You busted me, Greek."

The Greek had a bodyguard supplied free by Al Capone in Chicago. When a guy cheated him, the Greek had the bodyguard tie him to a chair. The Greek recited poetry and talked philosophy to them both for eight hours. The bodyguard felt tortured.

The Greek went broke 73 times. It said that in the 1954 Collier's article, and again when he died, meaning he was broke after 1954. I think, as does his biographer, Cy Rice, he went broke in 1949, and never recovered.

Once he went broke in a marathon crap game in New York that lasted many days. The columists for the newspapers reported it. And comedians competed for the best jokes about it. It was the talk of the town.

Benny Binion and Hank Greenspun, who did his eulogy both spoke of the fact no one knew where he got his money. The Greek told Cy Rick that gangster, Dutch Schultz, gave him a large suit case of $5 million to hold because he was the most honest man around. Schultz was killed and the Greek spend the years, 1941-1949 in and out of Las Vegas before the big games with Ray Ryan and Johnny Moss. He dated movie stars, and the newspapers had tidbits about him. He dated Ava Gardner. He also gave away many scholarships, and was a soft touch for anyone asking for money. After he got broke, that fabulous reputation let him borrow a ton he never paid back.

Love these old stories.