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Racino offers the Valley its first legal gambling machine mecca
Photo
By ROBERT CONNELLY
YOUNGSTOWN
The gambling options that will be available at Hollywood Gaming at Mahoning Valley Race Course have been popular in the Valley for decades, but this is the first time those slot machines — or video lottery terminals, as the Ohio Lottery Commission calls them — will be legal.
Vindicator archive folders marked “gambling” show pictures of raids from the 1930s all the way up to 1999.
Some of those raids were just a few slot machines here and there in small restaurant storefronts or bars, or even two-story homes. They were all over the Valley: Youngstown, Struthers, Campbell, Niles, Warren, Lisbon and Austintown.
Even a fake “village” called Halls Corners eventually met its demise after being set up to protect the infamous Jungle Inn, just over the Mahoning County line in Trumbull County, in a corner of Liberty Township.
In Halls Corners, the slot-machine haven was just outside of the reach of big-city authorities, but offered transportation to and from.
Popularity of the Jungle Inn was second only to “the bug,” a roving numbers game that moved around its headquarters over the years.
A photo caption from Jan. 21, 1943, said, “Deputy Sheriff John Hiesin is looking over a specially made safe that bug men had to fit into a suitcase to carry money.”
The bug headquarters raided that day in 1943 was at 3360 Wilson Ave. in Campbell. There were other spots raided that day — 315 W. Federal St., Youngstown; an old pool hall, 22 S. Phelps St., Youngstown, next door to the city jail and police station; and 106 South Ave., Youngstown, the “chief bug headquarters.”
The bug game originated with three numbers, and people would bet on whether their number would hit. The winner received only 60 percent of the winnings, explained Fred Viehe, history professor at Youngstown State University.
He said illegal gambling was common in the area. “The law is essentially what the public decides,” Viehe said.
Viehe added that the bug is still alive in the Valley and over the years adopted the same numbers as the lottery numbers from the Ohio Lottery Commission. That served as a way to legitimize the game, he explained.
CLAMPDOWN
As for the Jungle Inn, it sat at 3609 Applegate Road near the intersection of U.S. Route 62 and state Route 7. It was a brightly-lit oasis with bamboo furniture, tropic-themed draperies, floors both tiled and carpeted. The main room featured tables much like anyone would see in a restaurant of that era — lots of steel and linoleum, all with chairs that could be stacked.
The big bar was built of glass block. A small, private bar — also woven out of bamboo — was lit by chandelier.
Expert gunners stationed at a turret overlooking the huge main gambling room made certain no one stepped out of line, photos taken after one raid reveal. All matter of tickets, books and other records were kept in a small and roughly finished back room, concealing a gunman’s nest over a doorway.
On one wall was a giant board with numbers for up to eight horse races. The metal slot machines stood about waist-high, and table games such as craps, cards and roulette took in Valley gamblers.
There were many benches, loudspeakers and floor fans for bingo players, with 20 games Sunday through Saturday paying anything from $25 to $500.
The Jungle Inn was raided in 1949 after being ruled a fire hazard by authorities. By 1950 and 1951, it had been shut down.
A story from April 20, 1950, details the scrapping of the machines taken from the Jungle Inn. The money taken out of the machines and the amount officials received from scrapping the machines paid for all court costs for the government’s case.
“The $5,132.70 taken from the machines last August [1949], plus a $1,000 appeal bond, $434 turned in in stray coins this morning [April 20, 1950] and $115 bid for the scrap metal gives enough to pay all expenses,” the story said.
The reason the Jungle Inn had set up in Halls Corners was twofold, Viehe said.
First, there was a growing trend toward moving away from highly populated metropolitan areas. “Metro areas aren’t as safe as they used to be,” which led to “rural casinos,” Viehe said. That is why the Jungle Inn was situated out of Mahoning County, as well as out of the reach of Youngstown cops.
Even today, racinos are moving into the suburban areas, not the large metropolitan areas that mostly have been reserved for casinos. For example, Thistledown Racino sits in North Randall, a suburban area of Cleveland, versus the Horseshoe Cleveland in downtown Cleveland.
In a May 19, 1984, story headlined “250 Raiders Confiscate 51 Gambling Devices in Area,” The Vindicator reported a “gambling raid targeting 115 Youngstown-area businesses was the largest such mission in Ohio history. About 250 policemen — including undercover agents from the Ohio Department of Liquor Control and Youngstown and Austintown patrolmen — scoured the area for illegal poker machines.”
OPEN GAMBLING
Viehe said gambling machines were as common as jukeboxes in establishments throughout the Valley.
“The novelty of Youngs-town was how open [illegal gambling] was,” Viehe said.
While many residents believe all of the criminal activity in the Valley years ago was mob-related, Viehe disputes that theory. He said that if it were mob-related, the people involved in those operations were “associates” at best, meaning they would have to give 50 percent of their earnings back to the mob family to keep their “associate” status.
He discussed the Jungle Inn particularly, operated by Mike and John Farah, who he pointed out were not Italian, thus not being able to be “made men.” But he said there were signs that they were connected, such as operating outside the Youngstown metropolitan area and the fact that they closed down operations during World War II, something the mob did across the county to “support the war effort,” Viehe said.
Vindicator archives show 1949 pictures from the raid at the Jungle Inn and mention that the Farahs’ “ruthless operation” provided a free taxi service to downtown Youngstown for its patrons.
One of the earliest photographed raids in the area was 1938; two pictures show stacks of slot machines in the county jail, but no other context. A series of pictures that ran July 22, 1955, display candy shops, small taverns and restaurants as hubs for illegal gambling.
ADDICTION WORRIES
Ron Fasano, supervising clinical counselor and clinic director of Psycare’s Boardman office, knows about the history of gambling addiction in the Valley.
“The racino has made it more visible, but it’s been here for a long time,” Fasano said. “On the one hand I see the economic value to the region having a business like that. On the other hand, I have concerns that people who might be in a denial phase, it would be easier for them to go [to Austintown] instead of Mountaineer or Pittsburgh or Cleveland.”
Fasano continued, “For some people, the bigger threat isn’t that racino — it’s scratch-off tickets, which they spend a lot of money on.”
As the racino construction and opening has neared, Fasano said he has received more concern from family members of gambling addicts, not his clients. He explained that’s because gamblers “aren’t really realistic about the threats out there and the challenges.”
“I think that family members are quick to assume that since it’s closer, it will be worse,” he said. “The reality is the person is already gambling so they will just move their money elsewhere.”