1952 Silver Horseshoe Casino Benny Binion Medal

Viva Las Vegas!

The smiling cowboy depicted on this Las Vegas token is Lester "Benny" Binion, a gambler and bootlegger with connections to organized crime, and a man convicted of murder and tax evasion. With a rap sheet like that, one must wonder how the heck this guy got himself featured on a medal. The CliffsNotes® version is pretty simple: Binion was the founder of Binion's Horseshoe Casino in Las Vegas and was famous for establishing the World Series of Poker and in getting the National Finals Rodeo to move to Las Vegas. Worth an estimated $75 million when he died in 1989, Binion was widely known as a pack rat, who amassed a large coin collection and stored his treasures in a walk-in freezer located below the casino.

Binion's Horseshoe Casino

With his white 10-gallon Stetson hat and cowboy apparel, Binion perpetually looked as if he had just stepped out of a Sin City publicity pamphlet. Tall, robust, and perennially unshaven, he was a big, gregarious fellow whose homespun "aw shucks" demeanor hid a vicious streak born from a lifetime of climbing up the ranks of organized crime. In the early 1950s, Binion established a base of operations in Las Vegas after fleeing Dallas with his family and a suitcase full of money when rival gangsters threatened to end his life. He purchased the Eldorado Club and the Apache Hotel in 1951, opening them as Binion's Horseshoe Casino. At a time when other Las Vegas casinos offered luxurious, highbrow accommodations, the Horseshoe was little more than a glorified sawdust joint. But Binion proved to be the consummate huckster and innovative promoter, and soon the Horseshoe was a successful operation known for accepting high limits on bets.

Highly Pure Silver Tokens That Wish You Luck

One of Binion's promotions was this slick, half-dollar-sized token struck in highly pure 90% fine silver that featured none other than Benny himself on the obverse. Binion routinely passed these tokens out to guests at his casino, saying "Good Luck Pardner"—a phrase repeated on the medal's reverse. So that's the story of Benny Binion and how his face came to be featured on this piece of 1950s Las Vegas history. But don't wait—when our supply is gone, that's it!