Benny Binion

About

Benny Binion grew up outside Dallas and, according to The Mob Museum, ran bootlegging, dice games and a numbers racket in Texas through the 1930s and 1940s. His Texas career was violent: he was convicted in a 1931 killing and claimed self-defense in a second in 1936. When a new Dallas sheriff turned against him in 1946, Binion moved to Las Vegas, reportedly with $1 million in cash in the trunk of his Cadillac.

He first invested in the Las Vegas Club and then the Westerner before buying control of the closed Eldorado Club on Fremont Street in 1951. Nevada's Tax Commission refused him a license twice that year, so the Horseshoe Club opened on August 14, 1951, under the names of three other operators. On December 1, 1951, after a hearing in the federal building that now houses The Mob Museum, the commission approved his license 7-0. Two years later he pleaded guilty to federal tax evasion, served time at Leavenworth and came back in 1957. The family bought back the Horseshoe in 1964 with his son Jack licensed to run it, and Benny stayed on as a consultant.

The Horseshoe was built around gamblers rather than showrooms. Binion put carpet on the floor at a time when Fremont Street clubs had sawdust or wood, offered comps to ordinary players, took bets as large as a gambler's first wager and displayed one hundred $10,000 bills, a million dollars, in a horseshoe-shaped case. His motto was "Good Food. Good Whiskey. Good Gamble." The property bought the neighboring Boulder Club in 1960 and, under his sons, the Mint in 1988.

In 1970 Binion and Jack turned a small game among his friends into the World Series of Poker, which became the Horseshoe's signature event. He also led the effort to bring the National Finals Rodeo to Las Vegas. When the NFR arrived at the Thomas & Mack Center in 1985, it filled hotel rooms in a December that had been one of the city's slowest months. Binion died in 1989.

What to expect

Binion's Gambling Hall & Hotel still operates on Fremont Street under the Fremont Street Experience canopy, owned by TLC Casino Enterprises, and its own site tells the Horseshoe's history. The Horseshoe name now belongs to Caesars and is on the former Bally's on the Strip, where the World Series of Poker was held in 2026 along with Paris Las Vegas. Binion's bronze statue on horseback stands on the walkway to the South Point Arena & Equestrian Center, and the Neon Museum holds a Binion's Horseshoe sign from the late 1980s.

The NFR he helped bring to town still runs every December at the Thomas & Mack Center. The Las Vegas Sun, citing the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, reported 170,045 attendees and an economic impact of $156 million for the 2024 event.

More people who shaped Las Vegas

• Moe Dalitz
• Bugsy Siegel
• Howard Hughes
• Steve Wynn
• Kirk Kerkorian

Las Vegas history

• Las Vegas history, era by era

Good to know

• Sources differ on when the World Series of Poker left the downtown property: The Mob Museum says it was held there until 2004, the Review-Journal says the last one was in 2005, and the Neon Museum says about 2003.
• Binion's Horseshoe changed its name to Binion's Gambling Hall & Hotel in 2004, after Harrah's bought the property and kept the Horseshoe and WSOP brands.
• Binion's own website notes that its live poker room is temporarily closed, so check before planning a visit to play there.
• The Mob Museum reports that in a 1973 oral history Binion said of the Tax Commission that "they was on the take," though he claimed he never bribed anyone.
• The 2026 World Series of Poker was hosted by Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas on the Strip, not at Binion's.

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