Ace in the Hole

It’s a scene synonymous with the Old West: Swinging doors leading to a smoke-filled saloon decked with card tables and roulette wheels. Gambling, at least in the wild west myth, goes good with whiskey, whores and Wyoming. Through the latter half of the 1800s, Wyoming was a mere territory. Railroad ruffians, miners and miscreants packed Cheyenne bars and back alleys with games of chance: poker, keno, faro, ‘lambskinnet,’ roulette and dice. Bets were placed on anything from boxing matches and dog fights to foot races and horse races. “Gambling is an inherent attribute of the human heart. Show me the man who will not gamble in some way, and I will show you an imbecile,” Crook County Rep. Tom Hooper said in 1888. So infectious was the disease, the Wyoming Stock Growers Association adopted a resolution in 1885, outlawing gambling during roundups so ranchers wouldn’t be tempted to “lose the herd on the flip of a hole card.” Eventually, state legislators acquiesced to the growing number of churches and women in the new ‘civilized’ West with the McGill Act, officially outlawed gambling in Wyoming in 1901...Planet Jackson Hole