The "Illegal Of The Day" series welcomes Wayne Threadgill to the team. Wayne specializes in Hot Springs, Arkansas illegal club chips. His book "Gambling In The Spa" is one of the most complete and accurate works on illegal club history in a city and their chips, you will ever see. I highly reccomend his book. Wayne's contact: Wayne Threadgill (WAYNE540300@aol.com)

This IOTD started with an email from Wayne asking if there was a hub record for an EOW chip. One was found.

E O Wheatley
Hot Springs AR
200 chips
No address, no date
The whole team including Wayne needs this chip. Cough them up if you have traders.

Take it away Wayne:

A quantity of the smlkey and diamond mold chips with the initial EOW have been acquired from a relative of the Wheatley family along with some chips that were removed from a state police burn pile in the 60’s. Contacts have furnished some of the information including tax records and other information along with information that was found during research work. It reflects that Wheatley was involved in multiple casino operations. I thought it was very unusal that his occupation on his 1955 State Tax Return was listed as gambling, knowing it was still illegal to operate a gambling operation. City Directories show that Erb Wheatley was the manager of the Reno Club for 1943 through 1955

My notes: First time I ever saw an illegal club operators tax forms that actually confirmed he was making money drom illegal gambling. I wonder what the real totals were?

There are pictures of Franklin D Roosevelt visiting Hot Springs during this era for their healing baths. I'm betting somewhere there is a picture of him at a crap table, but we will never see it.