Warren Nelson - University of Nevada, Reno

I got together a crew to bring to Reno.
Th ese people are all dead now. One young
man by the name of Jim Brady was a very
bright guy about my age or a little bit younger.
I was twenty-three at the time—1936. A
young fellow by the name of Clyde Bittner,
who worked for me at the time of his death—
he was a shift manager—just a real fi ne, fi ne
man and very knowledgeable in the business.
Another man named Dick Trinastich came
with me. He was a big, fat fellow who died of
a heart attack; he got teased a lot, but he was
a very good Keno man.
We arrived in Reno on the twenty-ninth
of April, 1936. Francis Lyden got us a room
in a hotel above the Palace Club. Th en we
started getting all the things together to open
up the game.
Francis had dealt the game up in Butte,
Montana with his brother Joe. Joe was an
electrical engineer. Th eir stepfather, whose
name was Pete Notten, was one of the oldtimers
in the gambling business and had
brought his two step-sons into the business.
Th ey were very bright, methodical people, and
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Palace Club, 1936-1942
knew the business well. I learned a lot from
both of them. Joe is now in his eighties and
lives in Las Vegas, and I believe he operates
the Keno game in the Holiday Hotel.
On the way through Butte to Reno we
stopped and talked to Joe Lyden and old man
Notten; they gave me more advice.
Getting into Reno, we started to get the
stuff together. Reno was a very bright place at
the time; there were things that I’d never seen
before; it was very, very interesting.
I met a young lady the fi rst night I was in
town—the twenty-ninth of April and married
her on the twentieth of May; her name was
Clorinda Petricciani, the daughter of the man
who owned the Palace Club who Francis
Lyden worked for. Th is was sort of done on the
spur of the moment, but we stayed married
for ten years. It naturally made a diff erence
because I got chances through old John
Petricciani, who was called “Slot Machine
Johnny,” that I wouldn’t have gotten if I hadn’t
been married to his daughter. However, I
think that I learned well and did the best I
could with that.