Silvio Petricciani - University of Nevada, Reno

26 Silvio E. Petricciani
I know nothing of him to—I really couldn’t
say anything about him at all. I just vaguely
remember the name. If anything, he was in the
background, completely in the background.
Let’s see—now Warren Nelson—Warren
Nelson came into Reno in 1936 and there’s a
little history as to how he got to Reno. Warren
was living in Great Falls, Montana; and we
had a gentleman here by the name of Francis
Lyden who approached my father about
putting—at that time we called it Racehorse
Keno and now it’s called Keno—but putting
Keno in the Palace Club. So my dad listened
to it and to his proposition and decided it
was all right.
However, there was a problem insofar as
Keno that it might be considered a lottery.
And my dad went to Carson City and had a
talk with the governor at that time [Richard
Kirman, Sr.] and the powers that be; it was
decided that Keno could be operated in the
state of Nevada and would not be deemed
a lottery because Nevada has a law against
lotteries. So they deemed that it would not be
classified as a lottery, so Francis Lyden brought
in—there were no experienced Keno writers
or anything—so Francis Lyden went back to
Montana and brought in several experienced
Keno people. And Warren happened to be
one of them. And Warren Nelson got his start
right here in the Palace Club as a Keno writer.
And he subsequently married my sister, and
then they were divorced. And Warren went
on about his business in town. And so my dad
leased the place out, and somehow or other
Warren got in here on a one or two percent
partnership which was not supposed to be,
but he did. And he was in here until nineteen,
oh, about 1962 or ’63. I forget when they
opened the Cal-Neva, but he left the Palace
Club at that time, and they bought him out.
And he went into partnership in the Cal-Neva
then on Second Street.
And I might add right now that the Palace
Club was the original home of Keno. It was the
first Keno in the state of Nevada, and I guess
that’s so much for Warren Nelson. The rest is
history as far as he’s concerned.
How long was he here at the Palace Club?
Oh, he was here in the Palace until 1942,
I believe, and he went into the Marine Corps
at that time.
And as I said, Jack Douglass and Bill
Fong I didn’t know at that time. I just couldn’t
make any observations on those two people
at all, other than Jack Douglass went into
partnership with Warren and a few other
people down at the Cal-Neva Club. Jack was
around town for a long time here. He was in
the restaurant business I believe with Leon
Nightingale, restaurant and bar business with
Leon Nightingale, which is another partner in
the [Cal-Neva Club].
Why is Keno not considered a lottery?
What is different about it is in the way
that it’s interpreted in the federal laws, and
gaming— (now this pertains to all games)
and that is how it’s worded, and you can go
back and find it. The bets must be placed, the
winners determined, and all winners must be
paid off in the presence of all other players
participating in the game. So consequently
a lottery is a game whereby people can make
a bet like on—well, let’s say it’s going to be
a lottery. The racetrack itself is a lottery. I’ll
tell you why, because they take in a certain
amount of money, right? They tabulate this
amount of money, and they allot so much to
prizes, so much to overhead, and so much
to profit. So you see the people themselves
are, in effect, the whole amount of people
playing are paying for the winners, right?