Benny Binion
For those of you who are familiar with Benny Binion, it should be agreed that he is to the gambling industy what James Brown is to soul music. Binion was born and raised in Grayson County, Texas, north of Dallas, but migrated to El Paso when he was 17. It was there he made the production and sale of moonshine his livlihood. It was for this crime that he was caught twice. In 1928 he gave up bootlegging for the world of illeagal gambling. His gambling career started when he was running a numbers game in El Paso. This brought him into contact with people who gambled professionally. From these folks Benny got an education in gaming. This is the skill that would become his lifes pursuit.
The gambling world was a very rough place in the depression era, and In 1931 he was convicted of murder after shooting a man named Frank Bolding. As the story is told, Bolding attacked Binion in a back yard where they were arguing. Bolding had a particularly poor reputation with law enforcement and because of this Binion only got a two-year suspended sentence for the killing. In another incident he killed a fellow numbers operator. His foe drew his gun first so was found innocent on the grounds of self-defense.
Benny was in on the ground floor as Vegas began to grow and became a partner in one of the Las Vegas Club casino. He left this partnership a year because of disagreements about the size of limits on bets. In 1951 he opened Binion's Horseshoe casino. Very quickly his place became a favorite of the gambling sect. This was due to the availability of high limits on bets.
Some of Benny's past came back to haunt his as he served time in Leavenworth from 1953 to 1957 for tax evasion related to his operations in Texas. His legal costs came to a whopping $5 million and this forced him to sell his part in the casino. In 1964 his family regained control though, but Benny was never allowed to hold a gambling license afterwards. He continued so remain on the payrole though as a consultant.
The event that defined his career was when he arranged for Johnny Moss and Nick the Greek to play a five month long poker tournament, which Nick the Greek ultimately ended up losing. After the final hand, and losing millions of dollars, Nick The Greek uttered one of the most famous poker quotes of all time, "Mr. Moss, I have to let you go." This became the bedrock on which Binion built the World Series of Poker.
Benny Binion died of heart failure at the age of 85 on December 25, 1989 in Las Vegas. In 1990 he was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame.
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