Here he operated a nickel-and-dime game of dubious legality, loosely based on bingo, in which players sat in a circle and rolled marbles toward a number. The senior Harrah went bankrupt during the Depression and was left with only one asset: a leased building on the honky-tonk Venice pier jutting into the Pacific Ocean. William Fisk Harrah was the son of a Venice, California lawyer and real estate operator who also had served as mayor of this seaside community. Harrah's was proceeding with expansion plans and projects in nine markets and was aiming at a goal of 30 casinos worldwide by 2000. In 1996 the company opened its first overseas casino operation, a joint venture in Auckland, New Zealand. The casinos were located not only in traditional land-based venues but also on riverboats and Indian reservations.
had the largest share-nearly eight percent-in the nation's $14-billion-a-year casino-gambling industry, and in 1995 it was operating more casinos in more markets, 15 casinos in eight states, than any other casino company in North America.
Harrah's later opened a casino-hotel in Atlantic City and expanded rapidly in the 1990s, as casino gambling spread to half the nation's 50 states. William Harrah parlayed a Reno bingo parlor into a company, Harrah's Entertainment, Inc., consisting of Nevada casinos, hotels, and nightclubs that brought in nearly $200 million a year before his death in 1978.
