Benny had a little trouble in the late 1950's. Seems he had to go back to Texas for a few years as a "guest of the state" for not paying his fair share of income taxes...

While he was gone, he left the Horseshoe in the hands of his good friend Joe W. Brown. Benny's name had to come off of everything, and Joe's name went on everything.

Rather than replace the Binion's chips with Brown's chips, they literally scratched "inion" off of the chips.

This is the ashtray that started me and my husband is this crazy hobby! It was about 10 years ago, and we were at a local flea market. Saw this ashtray and paid .75 for it, only because we'd never heard of Joe W. Brown. We thought the 'Shoe was always Benny's. We bought the 'tray and started digging for info. It took awhile, but we finally learned the story. Got interested in the old Vegas stuff in the process...then expanded our interests to the rest of Nevada.

Joe W. Brown's name was even on the $1,000,000.