Vintage rigged Roulette Wheel
I've recently acquired a late 20's early 30's H.C. Evans "Deluxe" Roulette wheel. It was purchased in Omaha NE. The anti
Came across a lot of articles about prohibition. The reason these gaffed wheels are so rare is that they were all destroyed. The Mafia burned their gaffed systems so they wouldn't get caught. The U.S. Marshals destroyed everything they could find including regular wheels. I've searched through thousands of prohibition images related to roulette and haven't seen one with this type of wheel. Hopefully, someone will find one.
I guess if your going to be breaking the law by serving alcohol, you may as well add gambling to the mix. I'm surprised about how prevalent large-scale infrastructure for it, like roulette tables, seems to have been. Not exactly easy to hide or move to the next location. These speakeasies must have been the most open secrets ever.
Seems like the strategy on one of these wheels is figure out the sucker and bet the other side of the wheel.
Outer ring is finished.
Beautiful!
That looks awesome. Did you have to replace any of the inlay/laminate pieces or were they pretty much all still in place?
They were in place. A lot of the edges became delaminated. Took some time but I was able to reattach all the laminate. I had a problem spot where they cut out the area for one I’ve the devices. I’m working on that now.
Pretty sure he came back as "mr adam d" from 2009-2012. That account isn't banned, but he hasn't posted since then/
That’s a game misconduct or maybe a 2 or 3 day suspension. Lifetime ban is crazy.
The roulette wheel is coming out beautifully. Can’t wait to see when it’s done. Makes me envious that I don’t have those handyman skills. I did put in a floor in our attic for storage which I’m pretty proud of.
I think the mobsters handyman who installed these parts was a Baby Ruth fan! Look at the shims.
Given what I've found in H.C. Evans' "blue book" catalogue, I doubt it was a mob handyman who did the modification.
Yeah, turns out farther in that they offer that cover cheat seen in the video above:
And, on the bottom of this page...
Yeah, looks like this was a factory job.
They did have a catalog with gaffed machines but they didn’t sell gaffed roulette wheels. Look at the two devices. They are rough cut. The shims are a cardboard baby Ruth box and the other is paper. The screws are different on the two devices and they blew a hole out of the side of the laminate when the cut the hole out for the device. Could they have done it? Maybe, but wouldn’t they have fit it a lot more professionally? Who knows
Good find. Where did you get it?
It's the same catalogue the wheel came out of, just farther in. I just read every page. Got very tired of loaded dice and reader cards, but I think I've made a solid case that was part of their advertised service to "furnish special Roulette Outfits or to install special attachments in old wheels."
I found the catalogue here: http://rwatts.cdyn.com/Machines/download... Direct link is here: http://rwatts.cdyn.com/download/evanscat...
This part of the project is complete. The "Goddess of Chance" is in line to be fixed. I'll post another pic when I get her back. You can see where the mouse nest was in the first pick. Here are the before and after pics:
I'm currently looking for a table from the 20's and 30's era. Once I get my hands on one I'll continue the build and post the progress here. Again, I'm trying to find out where this wheel came from. I know it is a long shot. I'm looking for an image from that era with this type of wheel or a historian/expert in the history of roulette wheels. Thanks for your help!
Looks really nice. I assume it's just a trick of the light that makes that crack that runs through 14, 35, and 23 look open, yes?
Assuming they ordered it as a set, the table was probably very like the one in the Games Room video. You can see that same table style in this page of the catalogue illustrating their standard full roulette set up. Also, a couple of pages down (past the De Luxe Wheel), they advertise an after-market check-holder extension for anyone with an "old style" roulette table.
I read that. I have a feeling it's going to be hard to find a table without a wheel. The wheels are available but haven't found just the table. There's one out there somewhere. Thanks
As for your wheel's provenience, I would assume it came from one of the underground gambling clubs in prohibition-era Omaha. Apparently they were quite the open secret. Check out this blog about a guy trying to find the speak-easy his grandma used to frequent. Of particular interest is this:
I uncovered a fascinating article from the OWH, dated May of 1935. There had been a recent Clover Leaf Club gambling raid where seven men were arrested. Three men were held for trail: Ike Levinson, George “Dutch” Volker and Fred Sellers, all living at the Loyal Hotel. Five other men were dismissed for playing a game of chance with two others being fined $5 each. Apparently the raid followed after two patrons turned in the Clover Leaf for offering games of chance. The officers who conducted the raid reported, “When they entered, Volker ordered Sellers to press a signal light which warned players in the rear room. Levinson denied it was a signal light, saying it was meant to summon the porter. The back room was not for gambling but a dressing room for musicians, he said.” Levinson denied there had ever been gambling in the Clover Leaf Club. The proprietors were listed as Ike Levinson, Dutch Volker and one Charles Hutter.
The Clover Leaf closed in 1939 and sold off all their equipment. It's possible that the wheel came from there, but given how many illicit gambling sites Omaha apparently had (not to mention the chance that it came from out of town), it doesn't seem probable.
Chances of finding a picture from your wheel's heyday seem slim. For obvious reasons, photography was not common in illegal clubs. Here's one taken with a hidden camera in a club near Chicago, which was the only "in-use" roulette pic I could find from that era other than in Vegas. It's not the deluxe wheel, though.
