Playing the Cards That Are Dealt: Mead Dixon, the Law, and Casino Gaming

Derived from oral history interviews with the late Mead Dixon, this authoritative narrative provides previously unrecorded information about the gaming industry. Topics include boardroom maneuvering, cheating scams, "creative" financing, power plays among partners, and intense rivalries between casinos. Among the featured characters are Bill Harrah, the Houssels family, Donald Trump, Warren "Doc" Bayley, Jimmy Contratto, Jake Kozloff, Bob Maheu, and Si Redd.
    Dixon's career gave him an extraordinary perspective on gaming. Admitted to the Nevada bar in 1949, he became counsel to casinos and to groups launching gaming operations in Las Vegas, Reno, and Lake Tahoe. By 1957 he was the principal attorney for William F. Harrah and Harrah's Clubs, and by the late 1960s he was on the board of directors of Harrah's, the Showboat, and the Tropicana. Following Bill Harrah's death, Dixon was elected chairman of the Harrah's board, where he engineered the 1980 merger of Harrah's with Holiday Inns. Upon his retirement from Holiday, he returned to the Showboat board of directors and guided that company's successful expansion into Atlantic City. Playing the Cards That Are Dealt explores four decades of casino gaming history in the United States through the career of one of the industry's most prominent figures.

"Brilliantly edited.... Essential reading for anyone interested in the origins of what has become America's most dynamic industry."
     J. Mark Reifer, Casino Journal

"A direct, authoritative, and often provocative narrative."
    -- Loose Change

"Incisive. Witty. Blunt.... A spellbinder-it is the most forthright, powerful account of Nevada gaming ever done by an insider.
"     Rollan Melton, Reno Gazette-Journal

"Playing the Cards That Are Dealt is a ... gem. [It is] filled with rich anecdotes from Dixon's work with casinos, observations on the eccentric management style of Bill Harrah, and opinions regarding various influential Nevadans, occasionally offered with brutal candor."
     William R. Eadington, Nevada Historical Quarterly

"[A] fascinating account by one of the principal architects of the modern gaming industry."
     Byron Liggett, Western Gambling Journal

Playing the Cards That Are Dealt: Mead Dixon, the Law, and Casino Gaming. Reno: UNOHP, 1992. (276 pages, 19 photo pages, paperback)