Read on, you will see the tie in to the WSOP.

I moved to Las Vegas in 1980. Dealt at the Holiday Center Strip, now Harrah’s thru January 1981. I stopped by Binion’s WSOP in 1980 just to see what was going on. The atmosphere was amazing to me and I had been playing and running poker games all my adult life. In Jan 1981 I moved to the Four Queens, became manager roughly 2 years later.

I became very involved with the WSOP through running satellites for the WSOP.

Benny was still around but Jack and Teddy were running the place. Their fights on the casino floor are legendary. Teddy Jane, Benny’s wife, hated the poker players and the WSOP. The WSOP was in a small area. The WSOP buffet was in a small room next to the downstairs restaurant. Maybe seated 50 at a time. They served rattle snake meat, buffalo meat raised on Benny’s ranch, and other oddities.

It was different from the WSOP today. It was a unique experience. It was a big deal the year they hit 100 in the $10,000 event. It was a big deal when the first satellite winner, Tom McEvoy won the title. It was a big deal when the first lady made the final table. I rooted for her. I thought the best thing that could happen to poker was a lady Champion.

I remember when Frank Catrona, Golden Nugget poker manager, (rest easy friend) ran the WSOP from The Golden Nugget because he was not allowed on the Horseshoe property. True story.

I remember when Johnny Moss was king of the poker world and his wife carried a gun in her purse while sitting behind Johnny.

I remember the Jimmy Albrecht years. (rest easy friend) IMO he brought the WSOP into the 21st century.

In 1994 we stopped the Queen’s Poker classic and had a moment of silence when Teddy Jane died.

Maybe I am too sentimental but IMO there is no comparison to the experience today and the “Good Old Days” of the WSOP.

Things change but life goes on.

Enough of that:

Texas:

I got these in a trade in 2006.

Denoms $1, $5, $10. Looks like I have all that was made.

TJS (Chicago Style)
Tommy J. Scrivano
Steeplechase Bar
419 No. St. Marys St.
San Antonio, Texas
300 Red - $1
500 White $5
200 Blue $10
August 29, 1961

TJS
Tommy Joseph Scrivano, died San Antonio 1980, age 67. Scrivano opened the Steeplechase Bar around 1949-50.

At the time, Scrivano supposedly had a board in the bar where he posted all the current sports scores. When the chips were ordered in August 1961, the Steeplechase was a strip club. Scrivano was almost denied a liquor license in June 1961 because one of his strippers was arrested for doing a "lewd and obscene dance" at the Steeplechase.

Whatever the stripper was doing probably wouldn't raise an eyebrow today. In 1971 a San Antonio Express newspaper reporter, reported he saw Scrivano at the Horseshoe during the WSOP.

MY note: I would guess Tommy had a poker game at the Steeplechase. I bet the stripper was in the game, won a big pot, jumped up, did a victory dance, stripped all the way, and a poker player complained to the liquor board. Everyone knows what prudes those poker players are!

Here's an ad from 1950: