In the early 19th century, gambling was ostensibly illegal in most of the United States, causing vice districts to spring up in major cities, pairing gambling with prostitution. Especially in the South, gangs of swindlers ruled the betting trade in Vicksburg, Memphis, Mobile and other towns.
Outside of state jurisdictions, steamboats all along the Mississippi River region featured on-board gambling, with New Orleans as their base. City fathers tried in vain to outlaw cards and dice, but by 1850, the number of gambling houses in “The Big Easy” alone reached more than 500.
The United States Civil War (1861-65) brought a temporary hiatus to gambling in the South, as conquering Union troops closed most of the halls and heavily taxed the rest. But as the riverboats faded in importance, the railroads grew, and commercial gambling soon became prevalent along the routes to the West Coast, both underground and above.
Gambling thrived in the wide open, anything-goes atmosphere of the American West. Games like three-card Monte, faro, poker and roulette drew crowds from the dusty wood-floored card rooms of Tombstone and Dodge City to the elaborately decorated, totally legal gambling houses of San Francisco. At the same time, on the backstreets of Chinatown, Fan Tan and Mahjong survived.
In 1885, widespread political corruption caused the California legislature to take a strict stance against games of chance, with the unintended consequence of spreading professional gambling far and wide. Local operators moved east to the cow towns of Denver, Cheyenne, Wichita and Santa Fe, as well as mining centers like Deadwood, Cripple Creek, and Leadville.
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