In the Month of April

• April 1, 1964 In reaction to Edward Thorps book, Beat the Dealer, Las Vegas Resort & Hotel Association changes the standard blackjack rules for all casinos in Las Vegas. The two major changes were: no splitting of aces and double down on 11 only. Three weeks later those rules are dropped because customers refuse to play under those conditions.
• April 1,1991 Iowa is the first state to legalize low stakes riverboat casinos.
• April 3, 1941 El Rancho Vegas, the first hotel on the Las Vegas strip, opens with 63 rooms.
• April 7, 1864 The first camel race in America was held in Sacramento, California.
• April 11, 2004 Ashley Revell, a 32-year-old Londoner, sold all his possessions, took $135,300 to the Plaza Hotel in Las Vegas, did some low-stakes gambling, and then placed everything he had left on “Red” at the roulette table. The ball landed on Red 7 and he won $270,600.
• April 18, 2006 The largest slot machine jackpot in Atlantic City history—$10,010,113.48—was won on a Megabucks nickel machine with a $3 bet at Harrah's by an 84-year-old retired waitress from Galloway Township, New Jersey.
• April 20, 1955, Liberace opens the new $10 million Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas. His weekly salary for performing nightly was $50,000.
• April 23, 1956 Elvis Presley opens in Las Vegas for the first time at The New Frontier Hotel and casino. He had lukewarm acceptance, for his two-week engagement by the older middle-aged crowd and was cancelled after the first week.
• April 24, 1880 A bomb explores in the Monte Carlo Casino in Monaco, in a failed attempt to rob the casino.