BENNY AND THE BETS

When Benny Binion ran a gambling racket in Dallas during the Depression, he discovered that an employee was stealing from him. To address the matter, he stabbed the transgressor in the eye with a pencil.

Upon learning that some fool had organized a rival racket, Binion shot the interloper dead on a crowded street in broad daylight. In those days, Benny Binion never dreamed that half a century later, 18,000 people would celebrate his birthday by chanting his name, or that the mayor of a major American city would dedicate an equestrian statue of him. On the other hand, the metropolis of Binion’s future