Mother Lode

The well-oiled customers in the South Shore Room of Bill Harrah's Club at Stateline, Nev. last week had gone into the Sierra foothills with the same single-minded purpose that sent the Forty-Niners up the same steep trail more than a century ago. But there was this difference: the miner stood a fair chance of taking his gold out of the hills; the gamblers stand a better chance of leaving it there. Bill Harrah's glossy casinos--two on the shore of Lake Tahoe, one 56 miles away in Reno--are a rich vein only for their owner. The prospectors who play at his tables, like gamblers everywhere, pay dearly for the occasional jack pot, and the round-the-clock entertainment.

Last week it was George Burns, making his nightclub debut as a single (after three decades of radio, television and movies with his wife Gracie Allen), who supplied the big-name show. Later it will be Dorothy Collins, Rosemary Clooney, Guy Lombardo, Gisele MacKenzie in a line-up that costs Harrah more than $2,000,000 a year. Harrah's operation must relieve the customers of $60,000 a day--more than $21 million a year--merely to break even. High as those figures sound. Bill Harrah, the largest single private employer in Nevada, beats them with ease. By next year he expects to pay more than $7,000,000 to more than 2,000 employees.

Org Man. William Fisk Harrah was introduced to the business of betting on the right side of the odds back in the early '30s, when he quit U.C.L.A. to help run his father's bingo parlor in Venice, Calif. By 1937. he had moved to Reno. His operation has been growing ever since, and when he spread out to the shores of Lake Tahoe four years ago, he really began to rake it in.

The snow-ringed oasis in the midst of nowhere was once a quiet summer resort. Today the town has 5,000 year-round residents, two weekly newspapers, a radio station, and a busy branch of the Bank of America. Even in winter, a parade of chain-clad cars and as many as 30 Greyhound buses a day clank up the mountain road carrying the marks (Harrah refunds $6 of the $7.45 fare). Almost singlehanded, greying Bill Harrah has put the grey-flannel org man on top of a world that once belonged to the flashy lone wolf with fast fingers and a fat wad.

High Roller. At Harrah's, outside consultants are called in to study specialized problems such as transportation; a talent scout combs the show business world for new acts. (Harrah's has long since learned to vary its shows by the clock--organ music from 6 a.m. until noon, building to wild, brassy jazz when things heat up after midnight.) All Bill Harrah's dealers, half of whom are women, are trained in his own school. None of them are allowed to smoke, drink or chew gum on duty; careful research has even chosen what Harrah considers to be the most effective bad-breath tablets (Binaca) to be used while working. A Hollywood designer was called in to dress the girl dealers, and a 24-page gambling guide was published for novices.

As in any casino, the odds in favor of the house may seem slim, but even the high roller, if he bucks them long enough, must eventually lose. On dice bets, the house advantage ranges from 1.41% up. At the roulette wheel the house break is 5.52%. Slot machines at Harrah's are said to give the house a 4% to 7% edge. Other owners tap their one-armed bandits for as much as 20%, but Bill Harrah's low-percentage, high-volume approach proves itself week after profitable week.

Over the whole green-backed operation hovers an air of happy paternalism: group insurance, liberal bonuses, cars and gas-company credit cards for employees and entertainers. Even the kitchen help does not seem to mind the fact that a benign Big Brother has invaded their domain. One-way mirrors allow supervisors to keep constant watch on the food and money handlers. Harrah's clubs have become oases for bettors who like to lose their stake in style and performers who like to earn their stake as easily. Exuberant press-agentry may suggest that Las Vegas is the hub of the gambling universe, but Bill Harrah can laugh at the notion every day on his way to the bank.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.