Hi Larry. I may have been the one who posted about illegal San Francisco cardrooms. I think in the case of the Menlo Club it depends who you asked. Owner Bones Remmber no doubt thought his club was a legal private club. The district attorney and police chief of San Francisco disagreed which is why the place was raided numerous times. By the way I've emailed you a couple times in the last week or so and the email was returned to me. May be a problem on my end, not sure, but I just tried again.
On the Silks, I wonder about the chips only being used for hatcheck tipping. Maybe the 25cent chips were but $1 would have been an awfully generous hatcheck tip back then. Maybe they were used to tip the girls who would dance with the customers?