A rare chip from one of Reno’s most iconic and historic casinos
George Wingfield opened the Riverside Bank and leased out casino space in exchange for a sizable (up to 25%) cut of the club’s profits. He was already getting a share of the profits from clubs like the Rex and Bank Club being run by his protégés Bill Graham and Jim McKay.
McKay and Graham decided that having access to a bank could fatten their wallets even more quickly than their casinos did. In the late 1920s, Graham and McKay worked with con men from all over the country to lure rich prospects to Reno. Once in town, the well-off vacationers were systematically fleeced of their stock holdings and sent on their way.
The casino inside the Riverside, run by Nick Abelman, provided high-class shows, excellent food, and enough table games and slot machines to keep hotel guests and local patrons coming back for years to come.
Abelman ran the gaming with his partners, Steve Pavlovich and Bert Riddick, until 1949, when Mert Wertheimer convinced Wingfield to let him expand the casino. Wertheimer, most recently working with the Nevada Club group after coming to Reno from Detroit, was well-financed from his operations at the Chesterfield Club (and others) in the Motor-City.
The Riverside added 84 guest rooms and the first swimming pool to be built in a Reno hotel. Wingfield sold the hotel in December 1955. Over the next 25 years, the club had a progression of owners, most of whom ran a casino.
In 1967, the Nevada Gaming Commission revoked the gaming license at the Riverside over a dice-cheating scandal, and the Riverside closed completely in 1968. In 1971, Jessie Beck purchased the property and opened her own casino.
Beck ran a profitable operation and in 1978, she sold the Riverside to Harrah’s Entertainment so they could make a deal for the Overland Casino owned by “Pick” Hobson. “Pick” took over the Riverside and ran the hotel and casino until it finally closed in 1986, nearly 60 years since Wingfield rebuilt the hotel along the Truckee River.
