Binion's: Where the Gambler's Gambler Built His Empire

Benny Binion arrived in Las Vegas from Dallas in nineteen forty-six with a criminal record, a reputation for violence, and a genius for hospitality. He opened the Horseshoe Club on Fremont Street in nineteen fifty-one and set out to create the casino he wished existed. His formula was simple and revolutionary: higher betting limits than anywhere else in town, better odds, cheaper food, and free drinks. Binion believed that if you treated gamblers like they mattered, they would come back.

The World Series of Poker began at the Horseshoe in nineteen seventy and made Binion's synonymous with serious poker. For decades it was where the best players in the world came to test themselves. Binion himself served time in a federal prison for tax evasion in the nineteen fifties. He died in nineteen eighty-nine. The property changed hands multiple times after his death and was eventually renamed Binion's. The World Series of Poker moved to the Rio in two thousand five, but the room where it was born still carries his name.