Poker was good to me all through the 1960's-70's. I played in several regular games in the Dayton, OH area. One of the biggest pots I ever won was in the back room of a launder matte in Dayton. The game was no-limit hold-em. My friend Rainwater flopped top set. Another player flopped a lower set. Johnny B flopped a nut flush draw. I flopped a straight flush draw. Rainwater made quads. I made the straight flush. Rainwater always claimed it was a cold deck.

I think I already told the story of this same back room when 3 guys with shot guns kicked in the door. "Hands up" "Get against the wall" Give us all your money" Big Betty went to her bra for her cash and one of the shot guns went off. She caught several buckshot in the shoulder. She missed the next 5 or 6 games but came back just as mean as ever.

I've had this Mason record card for 12 years but had never seen a chip. I obtained the chip on the BB a few months ago.

Enough Of That:

Dayton, OH. A little before my time.

Take it away "Friend."

Dayton-Springfield Road also known as Wright Brothers Memorial Highway.

The chip delivery address, 2500 E.5th St. was the location of a small grocery store.

Silver Dollar Club

The chips were delivered to Joseph Leonardo Parisi, a son of Sicilian immigrants who settled in the Pittsburgh, PA area in the early 1900’s. During prohibition Parisi was a bootlegger. In the mid 1920’s he operated a still on a farm about halfway between Pittsburgh and Dayton, OH which supplied whisky to customers throughout central Ohio. By the mid 1930’s Parisi had moved from the Pittsburgh area to Dayton where he died in 1974 at the age of 69.

The chip delivery address, 2500 E.5th St., was the location of a small grocery store owned by a Lithuanian Jewish immigrant family named Schear. The Schear’s would later become the owners of a large chain of grocery stores in the Dayton area known as “Liberal Market”). The store was managed by Ralph D. “Cookie” Schear and sometimes the store was called “Cookie’s Market.”

In the 1930’s Cookie Schear and Joe Parisi formed a gambling partnership which ran numbers/policy/lottery games in the Dayton and Springfield, OH areas. They also operated a few roadhouses. In the late 1930’s they operated a gambling room in a house north of Dayton called the “Green Lantern.” The club got its name from two green lanterns sitting atop gateposts at the front entrance. In March 1939 the Green Lantern was high-jacked by five men with submachine guns and subsequently closed by the sheriff.

snip from another article:

My note: Joe and Cookie sound like the Screw Andrews of Dayton to me. Screw was the numbers "King" in Newport, Ky.

Not long after the Green Lantern closed, Parisi and Schear moved to another roadhouse located about halfway between Dayton and Springfield: the “Silver Dollar Club.”

The Silver Dollar was located in a rural house which sat just off the Dayton-Springfield Road about two miles northeast of what is today Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (known as Wright Field and Patterson Field when the Silver Dollar was in operation; Dayton-Springfield Road also known as Wright Brothers Memorial Highway—the Wright’s flew some of their earliest aircraft at the air field). The structure which housed the Silver Dollar sat just barely on the Clark County side of the Clark-Greene County line. The structure burned down in 1966.

old map showing location on boundary line and a current aerial of location:

appear to be remnants of buildings at the location:

Here’s a description of the Silver Dollar from the early 1940’s given by the club manager Melvin Thomas (the same guy mentioned above as the manager of the Green Lantern):

My note: I have TK mold chips with MT on them. One more reason to get the TK Specialty records released.

My note: First time I have heard it called a "crying room." The term in Newport was "walking money" and I've never heard of a guy getting all his money back. Usually a $20. IMO, the first time you gave a guy all of his money back and told him not to come back, you might as well close up because they would all cry for it. I think the reporter made that up. Some casinos in Las Vegas had a "walking money" policy when I first came to town. Not sure if any still do.

In 1944 a couple of losers at the Silver Dollar were unable to confine their tears to the crying room and cried all the way to the Clark County courthouse where they filed damage suits to recover their losses. These suits triggered a Clark County grand jury investigation into the Silver Dollar which resulted in the indictment of both Parisi and Schear on gambling and bribery charges in Dec.1944. Also indicted for bribery was Jerome A. Nevius. Nevius had just been elected to his 3rd consecutive four-year term as Clark County’s chief prosecutor.

In May 1945 Parisi and Schear plead guilty to the gambling charges:

In June 1945 Nevius went to trial on his bribery charge, the gist of which being that he had accepted cash and automobiles from Parisi and Schear in exchange for protection of the Silver Dollar. Witnesses testified that they had seen Nevius at the Silver Dollar. He would stay for a few minutes then leave. Nevius’ bank accounts showed deposits not congruent with his salary as chief prosecutor. A constable from a town near the Silver Dollar testified that he asked Nevius for aid to raid the club and Nevius replied: “If I were you, I’d let it ride.” A former patron of the Silver Dollar had this to say at the trial:

My note: Nevius is just one more elected official charged with accepting bribes to protect gambling. How many have we seen in the IOTD series? Parisi had no problem telling people about the bribes. Remind me to never rob a bank with this guy.

Nevius’ trial lasted 17 days. The jury took a little over 90 minutes to find a verdict of guilty and the former prosecutor received a sentence of 1 to 10 years at the Ohio State Penitentiary. Nevius immediately appealed the verdict. The appeal process lasted almost 2 years and culminated in a decision by the Ohio Supreme Court to uphold the verdict. Nevius appealed to the United States Supreme Court but they
refused to hear his case.

In June 1947 Nevius began to serve his 1 to 10 at the Ohio Pen—rubbing shoulders with guys he helped put there as a prosecutor.

pic of Nevius entering his new home:

“GAMBLING DOES NOT PAY”......unless you were a shareholder in the Parisi-Schear partnership. According to the sworn testimony of

Parisi & Shear’s accountant, during the years 1941-1944 said their gambling partnership had a gross income of $3,700,000 and a net profit of $500,000. Of this amount the Silver Dollar contributed $545,000 to the gross and $226,784 to the profit (most of the partnership’s gross income came from running numbers games—90% going to payouts, according to their accountant).

Another numbers game:
--The average annual income in the US in 1940 was $1,368; or $22,721 in 2013 dollars.
--Nevius’s annual salary as Clark County’s chief prosecutor in the early 1940’s was about $3,700 a year; or about $50,000 in 2013.
--The Parisi-Schear gambling partnership in the early 1940’s had an annual profit of about $125,000; or about $1,700,000 in 2013.

In the early 1940’s the combined population of Dayton and Springfield was about 300,000.

After serving 23 months in the Ohio Pen, Nevius was paroled June 15th 1949.

Apparently the Clark County Historical Society has a collection of materials related to the Nevius case. I emailed them several weeks ago about the collection but never received a response. http://www.heritagecenter.us/search_collections.cfm

How many of you have this chip?
See you after the convention.

Brand new to me illegal club coming after the convention?
Do you have this chip? I know 5 people that does have it.