Robbins E. Cahill's career of service to the state of Nevada has been long and distinguished. He has spent nearly his whole life in Nevada as student, businessman, politician, worker for state and local agencies, lobbyist, and civic leader. Born in Ogden, Utah, in 1905, he moved with his parents to Sparks when he was four. He attended public school in Sparks, and graduated from the University of Nevada.

In 1938, Cahill was elected to the Nevada State Assembly, the beginning of his lengthy state service. He became chairman of the important Ways and Means Committee. In 1940, partly because of problems with his private business, he obtained a position in the insurance division in the state controller's office. Two years later, Cahill became deputy state controller and in that capacity, inspired the idea of setting up the Legislative Counsel Bureau. From 1945 to 1963, he was a member of the Nevada State Tax Commission, and from 1955 to 1958, chairman of the Gaming Control Board. In 1963 he left state government to become Clark County Administrator, and in 1966 was appointed director of the Nevada Resort Association.

Cahill's expertise is particularly strong in two areas: taxation and the state control of gaming. This is (at the time of its publication) the longest autobiography in the oral history collection and among the most valuable. Cahill has an encyclopedic memory and is a balanced, perceptive observer of people.

This is undoubtedly the most important single source available to researchers on Nevada gaming since 1945. It is indispensable to the subject. Interesting to this reader was Cahill's discussion of the zoo joints and other con games of the 1940s and the crossroaders. He provides a sustained discussion of many of the leading gaming owners of Las Vegas, and also discusses the inside story of the Thunderbird case.

Cahill does not really dispute most of the facts sensationalized by the Kefauver Committee in 1951 or by the Green Felt Jungle written in 1963 by Ed Reid and Ovid Demaris, but his interpretations of these facts are quite different. He is not bothered at all that people such as Benny Binion or Moe Dalitz had been involved in illegal gambling activities before they came to Nevada. His argument is that only people of previous experience in gambling should be involved in Nevada gaming, and that the experience by definition had to be picked up illegally if it was done outside the state. Instead, the important standard of judgment to Cahill is that these illegal businesses had to be conducted honestly. Unlike Kefauver, Cahill further argues that even the best people could be charged with income tax evasion. According to Cahill, Moe Dalitz in particular has been a real credit to Las Vegas. Cahill's overall philosophy is that "who owns a gaming place is not nearly as important as how it's run."

Ultimately, Cahill appears rather pessimistic about gambling's future in Nevada. His final chapter, detailing his tenure as director of the Nevada Resort Association, vividly runs down a list of unpublicized problems confronting the industry, such as the growth of unions in the resort industry, the threat of federal government intervention, and issues of equal rights.

Cahill discusses many of the tax problems facing Nevada and acknowledges his debt to Harold Brown of the College of Education at the University of Nevada in influencing his views on state support of education. He has a vivid discussion of the Great Depression. There are colorful vignettes of Senator Patrick McCarran and other notable politicians. Most appealing is Cahill's frank admiration for Governor Charles Russell. Robbins Cahill's oral history will become a basic research source in post-Depression Nevada politics, finance, taxation, and gaming. Cahill is the state's—probably the nation's—best authority on gaming, and he is certainly the best source on the basis of Nevada's modern tax systems.