Joker Casino
Gambling: Las Vegas on Progress
Southern Californians returned repeatedly to Las Vegas, because they enjoyed the thrill of gaming.
The consequently made gambling the predominant of feature of the desert resort. They accepted the old West motif, but they subordinated it to the activity of betting.
The town changed to suit the preferences of Southern Californians, and so began its rise to become gambling capital of the United States.
Full-fledged casinos steadily supplanted the gaming clubs of the 1930s, automobiles constantly undermined the primacy of the railway, and Hollywood techniques increasingly governed promotional efforts.
A B-grade movie called 'Las Vegas Nights', which supplied favorable publicity in 1941, aptly symbolized the much more powerful role that Southern California had begun to play in the desert resort.
The arrival of ever-increasing numbers of Angelenos in Las Vegas at the close of the 1930s marked the start of the transformation from tourist stop to urban resort.
Wartime social patterns reinforced the reorientation that Southern Californians initiated in Las Vegas. Mobilization for war directed to Nevada thousands of men uprooted from home and family.
These migrants included servicemen preparing to face tremendous risks as well as war workers toiling in oppressive conditions.
Conventional moral standards wilted in such a climate as everybody tried to grasp pleasure in the time available.
Like Angelenos, soldiers and war workers cared more about Las Vegas as a recreation center than as a showcase for Western Americana. They perhaps enjoyed the last frontier on a first visit, but they returned to play at the gaming tables.
The onset of war served to accelerate change and growth. During the Second World War, the military made ample use of the vacant federal lands throughout the state of Nevada.
Even before the Japanese attack on Pearl harbor, preparations were under way to build a military base and a defense plant in the vicinity of Las Vegas.
Military service often exposed men into gambling and encouraged them to play at casinos. Soldiers tended to spend just as freely as the federal government did in the area and increased local business substantially.
The soldiers of the early 1940s constituted a steady supply of customers for Las Vegas casinos.
Local businessmen had good cause for confidence in the early 1940s because Las Vegas had suddenly become a popular recreation center. Soldiers and plant workers, of course, proved to be a broad and deep supply of steady customers.
The value of these generally young men resided not only in the wartime business they stimulated but also in the postwar return trips they would make to southern Nevada.
Civilians kept coming to Las Vegas, too, despite the rationing of gasoline. In fact, the town surpasses the popularity of Boulder Dam for tourists.
While tight military security on the Colorado River discouraged travelers from stopping there, Las Vegas appealed to visitors increasingly and became the primary tourist attraction in southern Nevada.