May 7, 2015 Thursday
I completed a one-hour podcast interview at the Gamblers
Book Store in Las Vegas
today. It will go on the air tomorrow for the 200,000 subscribers. Podcast host
and former owner Howard Schwartz has been a special friend for several decades.
He has also followed the history of the casino industry closely. Gamblers Book
Store offers for sale my Nevada
casino and organized-crime history books and my casino business books among its
large selection of more than 3,000 titles that cover most forms of gambling,
the gambling industry, and organized crime. The store's large inventory is
listed on www.GamblersBookClub.com.
The store also features my photo with the store owners on
its Wall of Fame of key Las Vegas
casino executives and famous players. I really like that picture because it is
of a twenty-years younger version of me, and it brings back wonderful memories about
the late John and Edna Luckman, who created the Gamblers Book Club in their
home garage, as a mail-order business. They were literally like family to me
during my early casino history researching years. I frequently spent time
discussing my most recent research and interview findings with John, as he
wrapped books for mailing in their garage. He was a great sounding board for my
new findings and concepts. John was a pit floorman at the Tropicana Hotel on the Las Vegas Strip, and he arranged interviews
for me with the casino's high-roller hosts and the hotel's executives from the
department heads up the ladder to the managing owner.