Could be craps, blackjack or any other table game. The Flamingo Hotel Casino opened in 1946. A $5 wager in 1946 is the equivalent (using an inflation calculator) of a $65 wager in 2019....or equivalent buying power. Were there that many gamblers wagering $5 and more on various craps bets or blackjack bets back in 1946? All things considered, three initial $5 wagers in 1946 on (ie, 4-5-9) is approaching an initial $200 spread over those same bets in 2019. Am I missing something or were $1 craps tables a regular thing in the 1940’s or 1950’s. They used penny, dime and quarter chips back then to make the payouts on $1 bets for craps? It seems a $5 minimum blackjack table in 1946 is an equivalent $65 minimum blackjack table today?? Shit, even a $2 bettor back then would be an equivalent $25 bet today. Am I reading this wrong and an inflation calculator cannot be used in this instance? Just pondering the divergence in minimums or did people have a lot more money back then. https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/
My first trip to LV was with my parents in 1964. Armed with Thorpe's Beat the Dealer I played Blackjack exclusively, and exclusively at Tropicana. I don't remember what the table minimum was, but I'm thinking it must have been $1. I'm also thinking I was a $2 bettor (~$16.50 today according to the inflation calculator posted), which means I have pulled in my horns a little since $10 is my base bet today. I don't remember seeing any chips with a value less than $1, but the last time I was at Lucky Eagle, a Native American joint buried in a forest in west central Washington, maybe 20 years ago they had "birds" (25¢), and up until maybe 10 years ago the $3 Craps table at my local haunt had actual half dollars. A couple other things I do remember: At one Blackjack table a guy with a fistful of quarters (red in this pre-standardized time) was betting $50 and up a hand and lamenting that they didn't look like $900. In the wee hours of one morning I was attracted to a craps table by the noise being made at it. A middle aged hooker look-alike offered my $5 to get her a cup of coffee. I couldn't find a place to get one, but she told me to keep the chip anyway. I heard the next morning that the hooker look-alike had been with a guy who took $64 large off the table that morning. Even if I had not graduated from my craps-is-too-complicated phase I could not have gotten into the game with a shoe horn.
