After our Illegal Seminar at the June convention, I received this email from Ed Hertel concerning the GTBC hub chips. They have always been attributed to the Galveston Texas Beach Club. I would never have questioned them. I was surprised Ed was. As you will read he was right to question it. Is it a Galveston chip? Yes. Was there a Galveston Texas Beach Club? You decide!

Enough of that:
Texas:

Email from Ed:

Man, I would have never questioned this chip if it wasn’t for the seminar and me wanting to use it in the talk. I don’t know what to think.

I know the yellow Beach Club chip came from the Vic Maceo’s Beach Club.

I was friends with Vic’s son some years back and he gave it to me along with some other Maceo stuff. I know there are probably hundreds of “Beach Clubs” and being a BC Wills chip that the purists like yourself won’t believe it (LOL), but I’m confident with my source.

My note: The BC Wills records do not exist. Back in the early days in Illegal Casino chip collecting and no records yet found, we were hungry for ID's. Collectors and sellers took advantage of this by making up ID's to match initials. Many of us took their word for bad ID's. Some of us including Ed Hertel have spent much time and effort to fix as many of those bad ID's as possible.

Vic’s son, Anthony, got sick years back and moved to Austin, then somewhere else, into a nursing home. I lost track of him.

The GTBC is one of those chips that had been identified through whatever source long before I got into illegals, which means quite awhile ago. There were some rather questionable people attributing chips and maybe this was one of those. I think the fact these were delivered so close to the Beach Club might lend some weight, but it would be nice to find out a little more on the Arrigo guy.

We were told the initials stand for Galveston Texas Beach Club. I don’t know who this Emanuel Arrigo is, but the Rod & Gun Club was busted in 1957 for gambling.

My note: 5,000 chips ordered. That is a good size order. They were not used in a small fly by night operation, IMO.

Enter "Our Friend Of The Hobby."

I gave it a good look but unfortunately haven’t been able to come-up with anything definitive to match the initials GTBC.

The chips were delivered to Emanuel Arrigo at the Rod & Gun Club, 2206 Ave. Q on June 12th 1952. A few weeks before and after the chip order Arrigo has 3 separate dice orders with O’Neil in Las Vegas. These orders were delivered to his residential address. Here’s the order card from May 28th 1952. He also had orders dated June 9th and June 24th 1952.

At the time of the chip order the proprietor of the Rod & Gun Club was Otis Skains. Skains had run the club for several years on 61st Street but a few months prior to Arrigo’s order had moved it to Ave.Q.

In addition to 2206 Q the address of the club was sometimes referred to as being at 2208 Q. The building which housed these addresses was near the beach front. The Buccaneer Hotel was across the street and the Mountain Speedway roller coaster was located behind the building. Here’s a couple of pics showing its location:

Prior to the Rod & Gun Club moving into the building, 2206 and 2208 Avenue Q housed the Lariat Club and the Q Club. The Q club was owned by Vic Maceo and Willie Wisko (after the Q Club closed, Wisko operated the Beach Amusement Parlor in the building next door at 2202 Q).
Vic Maceo also owned the Beach Club, which the GTBC chips have been at times attributed to. The Beach Club was located on the Seawall Boulevard side of the Crystal Palace building, which stood just west of the Buccaneer Hotel.

Sometime in 1954 the Rod & Gun Club moved west a block and across the street to 2301 Avenue Q, which was the same city block as the Crystal Palace building. In December 1954 Arrigo has his second GTBC chip order delivered to his residential address. Right around the time of the chip order a new place opens at 2208 Avenue Q: the Sahara Club. I wasn’t able to determine if Arrigo was involved with the club when it opened but he certainly was when it closed three years later in 1957. In the summer of 1957 Texas Attorney General Will Wilson began filing injunctions against any place in Galveston for which there was evidence of gambling or liquor violations (the Jimmie Stewart mentioned in the article below was a long time gambler in Galveston):

The injunction in Arrigo’s case was for gambling. It was later dismissed when the building which housed the club was sold and set for demolition. Arrigo’s connection with clubs located in the same building on Avenue Q makes me think that the GTBC chips were used in a gambling room in that building—but what the GTBC stands for I have no idea.

My note. I concur with our friend. Like several other gambling rooms we have read about in "Illegal Of The Day," posts the Galveston Texas Beach Club never existed on any paper document we can find. This fact exists: Arrigo bought 5,000 chips and dice. He was associated with all three joints. Was it a private gaming room or were they used in one, two, or all three of Maceo's clubs, The Beach Club, The Sahara, and The Rod and Gun Club? IMO, a case can be made for all three.

Arrigo died in Galveston in 1977 age 68. He was born in New York City and came to Galveston when his father, a barber and native of Palermo, Sicily, moved the family there in the 1920’s.

My note: Emanuel Arrigo left his mark on Galveston illegal gambling. I for one feel privileged to be able to learn some of that history and to have a small peek into the lives of the owner/operators of the illegal casinos that used the "Little Pieces Of History," I collect.

My note: There is no doubt Galveston, TX was ruled by the Maceo's and the Fertita's same as Dalitz and Lansky ruled Newport, KY, the Capone mob ruled Chicago, and Carlos "The Little Man" Marcello ruled New Orleans. All were very brutal rulers when they needed to be, in the "Era Of The Illegals."