Every Light Was On

Nevada Casinos of the 1930s were rough-and-tumble businesses, deeply rooted in the frontier ethos from which legalized gaming had emerged: cheating, profit skimming, and employee theft from the house were rampant. By background and temperament, William Fisk (Bill) Harrah was ill-prepared to succeed in such a business when he opened a small bingo parlor in Reno in 1937, but by the mid-1960s his Harrah's Clubs were the most profitable casino gaming operations in America, and he had become the de facto leader of the industry. Bill Harrah's life and career were rich with paradox. The privileged son of a southern California attorney, Harrah lasted less than one term in college before sliding into a profession which at the time was largely populated with cheap hustlers and petty crooks. Harrah was honest, but he was also a drunk and a womanizer and a habitual gambler, and for years it appeared that he would never amount to much. When his second wife got him off the bottle, he focussed his attention on building his business, but he never really cared for it. Bill Harrah's passion was old automobiles: he sank tens of millions of his company's dollars into buying and restoring them. The book is both an exploration of a singular personality and a detailed account of how Harrah's Clubs became the standard by which all other gaming properties were judged.