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Blood Aces: The Wild Ride Of Benny Binion, The Texas Gangster Who Created Vegas Poker (2014)

by Doug J. Swanson(Favorite Author)

3.87 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

0670026034 (ISBN13: 9780670026036)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Viking Adult

review 1: I had such a sour taste in my mouth after I read a recent book about poker, decided to read another book in that world. Come to find out, Blood Aces really wasn't about poker except toward the end of the book but about the life of Benny Binion, creator of the World Series of Poker. That event, and professional poker in general, has become a billion dollar industry for the gambling world and who knows how many more millions are wagered in home games. I knew very little about Binion other than the fact he owned the old-school Horseshoe Casino in the seedier, non-strip part of downtown Las Vegas & the WSOP connection. Come to find out, Binion was quite the criminal in Dallas, making a fortune with numbers running, money laundering, racteteering, illegal gambling, tax evasion ... more& the like in Dallas before he ever set foot in Las Vegas. We should also add murder as he not only personally killed a few people, he allegedly paid to have numerous people knocked off who were carving into his territory & profit. Blood Aces [great title] is a lot of fun if you are into rural criminal behavior or early Vegas lawlessness. Las Vegas was a wild place in its early days with the mafia opening skimming huge amounts of money, over the top corruption & the lack of the police to make laws stick.
review 2: Disclaimer: I received this book as part of a Goodreads giveaway in the expectation that I would review it. This was an Advance Uncorrected Proof copy, and there will be changes to the final product.As the subtitle indicates, this is a biography of Benny Binion, who was born in a tiny town in Texas in 1904 to a horse trader’s family, and rose through moxie, violence and crime to be a beloved fixture of Las Vegas. Like many gangsters, Mr. Binion’s life makes for colorful reading, full of narrow escapes, famous names and death.The picture painted of Dallas in the 1930-40s is not a flattering one. Mr. Binion started in the numbers racket, and eventually managed to break into the lucrative and more “respectable” dice gambling world. He was perhaps a victim of his own success. That and somebody kept trying to kill one of his major rivals, Herbert Noble, and everyone was pretty sure Mr. Binion was behind it.So Benny Binion had to light out for Las Vegas, where gambling was legal and eventually became the owner of the Horseshoe casino, best known for its “no-limit” dice games. Later he also became the founder of the World Series of Poker.Like many gangsters, Benny Binion was a good friend to those he liked, and generous to the disadvantaged. But get on his wrong side, and he did not stint on the anger. As he got older, the people of Las Vegas preferred to remember his good side.Since Mr. Binion tended to lie a lot, and quite a few allegations were never proved, the author has had to rely on secondary and unreliable sources for much of the story. After lighting out for Las Vegas, the only thing Mr. Binion was ever convicted on was tax evasion. But there sure were a lot of people he didn’t like that wound up dead under suspicious circumstances.There’s also asides on various people who also affected circumstances in Dallas or Las Vegas, such as Howard Hughes, who almost inadvertently changed the way casinos were owned just so he could hole up in his room in peace.There are black and white photos at the beginning of the chapters, end notes sourcing the quotations, and a selected bibliography. The index is not in the uncorrected proof, but should be in place for the final product (scheduled for August 2014.)I did not know about most of the information in this book, particularly the bits set in Texas. It’s a good book for true crime fans, and will have local interest for people in Las Vegas and Dallas. it certainly makes a change from Chicago gangsters! less

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