Silvio Petricciani - University of Nevada, Reno

Background, Early Life and Education
3
throughout the country, and he was away
quite a bit of the time. And as a matter of fact,
my dad bought a couple of horses himself and
tried it out, but his horses weren’t that good
[laughs] so he decided, well, Dad was quite a
family man, and he was away from home a lot,
so he decided that he’d be better off staying
in the town.
So Bert said, “Well, okay John, tell you
what—I’ll make you a partner in the slot
machine business.” He says, “You pay me off
for your half from the profits.” They named a
price; I don’t know what it was—and he says,
“I’ll go about my business with my horses,
and you run the slot machine business in the
city of Reno.”
And of course, at that time the slot
machines were condoned—gaming was
not legal. This was, oh, I’d say—I have to
go back and think a little bit, but, the early
twenties—to ’29, ’30—gaming was condoned,
slot machines were condoned, but they were
not legal. Of course, he went ahead and
ran the business, and he bought his share
of the business and it was very profitable—
everything worked out real good. And then,
strangely enough, at that time the Palace
building became for sale, and he bought it!
At that time, the old Graham-McKay
combine with Jack Sullivan had gaming
downstairs where the old Bank Club was, and
they split out with their partners down there
and came and got in partnership with my dad
upstairs in the Palace building, and they ran
that until gaming was legalized. And then,
they went downstairs and opened up the Bank
Club downstairs. And my dad for a few years
rented the upstairs [of the Palace building] to
the Graham-McKay combine so that nobody
else would open up in competition with them.
And he just had his building here and the slot
machine route, which the Bank Club gave
him—let him have the slot machines in the
Bank Club, but he was no longer in business
with them.
And, let me see, then we go up until the
time that gaming was legalized, the Volstead
Act was repealed, and my dad opened up a
bar and limited gaming—I think he had a
Roulette wheel and a “21” game, and a poker
game—in the old Palace downstairs. And
at that time the Graham-McKay combine
decided that they would keep their own slot
machines, and he no longer had the slot
machines in the Bank Club.
So he went on and ran the place until
1934 when I graduated from high school, and
then I came to work for him in the Palace—
course I had been working as a slot machine
repairman and so on, from 1930 on, until I
came to work in the club.
Kathryn M. Totton: Norman Biltz, in his
oral history, remarks that your father leased
slot machines for the Cal-Neva and the Bank
Club to Graham, McKay and Sullivan until he
“served them notice that he was going to take
over the Palace at the expiration of their lease,
and this was where. . .he broke his hold on the
slot machine business because they went out
and bought their own, and everybody else said
what are we doing paying Johnny? So I think he
lost a more lucrative business than he gained.
By taking over the Palace as a gambling house.”
Would you like to comment on this?
Well, that’s accurate to a point. When
you say lease, it wasn’t quite that—that
arrangement wasn’t right. What happened
was my dad owned the slot machines—my
dad and Baroni owned the slot machines—it
was like a route more or less such as certain
companies have now. And they would furnish
the slot machines and of course the other
partner would furnish the premises, and then
they would split it down the middle, fifty-fifty