It was embarrassing entering the Horseshoe last week with two friends from Chicago who hadn't been downtown in fifteen years. We parked on the back street a block from Fremont St. and entered from the old Mint side. My friend commented that the last time she had been here was when the Mint was still standing. I told her that besides the Fremont St. Experience not much had really changed downtown. Entering from Owens St. it looked exactly the same to her but for the absence of the Mint sign.

That was until we walked inside. It was eerily silent; the machines that were standing were dark. There were no players anywhere to be seen, no workers, no security, and no cocktail waitresses. We looked at each other in disbelief. I told them they were probably changing the casino layout which we all knew was just an excuse. Then the closed and covered blackjack tables, standing like an abandoned ghost town, stood silent along with everything else just sounding the death knell for the wonderful old casino. There were twelve empty tables, with a dealer at each table and four relief dealers we were looking at sixty dealers put out of work.

Becky Behnen had done her job well. She had managed a family business that had taken hold in the 50's thanks to the great business and gambling sense of her father Benny Binion who along with a fat bank roll thanks to his back-room casino business in Kansas City managed to take an old broken down hotel and turn it into the busiest casino in the entire town in its hey day. But now…

At one time the Horseshoe crap tables took down more money in one night than most casinos took in a whole week in their entire casino. Not only could you not get a spot at the Horseshoe crap tables, but if you didn't know the game and had to ask questions, the dealers would just hand you back your bet and ask for another player. They didn't have time to explain the game or even run the game around the unknowing player, they didn't worry about offending an inexperienced player, they just didn't have time to explain anything and since each spot at their tables meant money, they couldn't take time for a $2 pass-line player to figure out why he won on a 7 one time, then lost on the same 7 another time.

We walked through the dark casino into the lit casino area that had some players and a few tables and machines going. But something wasn't right, something wasn't the same.

The Horseshoe dealers of old were probably not only the most experienced dealers in town, not only the fastest dealers on a single deck game in town, but with the tokes they took down, they also held one of the most desirable dealing jobs in town. A toke envelope from the Horseshoe was thicker than any of the other downtown casinos. Experienced crap dealers from any other casino in town were strictly second rate compared to the Horseshoe crap dealers who kept their own tokes separate from the rest of the casino and probably pulled down tens of thousands more than most other Las Vegas crap pits. It was a strain for them to keep the pace of the game to fit the players speed and they talked another language unknown to anyone but the floor men and the other crap dealers. Now they pushed the dice on a $2 crap game like plows through a winter snow storm. The blackjack dealers pitched the single deck games like a washed up relief pitcher for an old timer's softball game. The cards now came out of the shoes like a size 12 Cinderella squeezing into a size 6 shoe.

Only a few looked like they even spoke English as Becky had her way of weeding out the old English speaking dealers who not only lost any benefits they once enjoyed, as well as the trashing of their 401K's that went as fast as their jobs. Most of the dealers were part-timers who had to wait by the phones for a call to work which only happened now on the weekends, and then only the really busy ones. Now they hired strictly Asian dealers as break-ins knowing they would keep quiet and just show up when asked and not complain about their hours being cut or not having any benefits after working the extra-board for years at a time waiting for a full-time shift that never comes. They take their $40 dollars a day in tokes, an average comparable to North Las Vegas break-in casinos.

At a time when casinos are hurting for business for various reasons from 9-11 to the drop in convention business, a slow economy and most of all, the out-of-state growth in gambling, the downtown casino area was doing everything they could do to boost business and here in their midst was the degenerate crapping on the living room floor as they cleaned house around her, and the crappers name was Becky Behnen the owner of the Horseshoe.

We talked and agreed that the only thing that could bring the old casino back would be the return of Jack Binion, the sole surviving brother of the Binion clan. He had taken his last name, his business sense, and his fathers' gambling sense and the Horseshoe name and turned it into a lucrative business in Mississippi and totally abandoned the old Las Vegas property.

It would take begging from an entire city to bring Jack back to town. He told everyone in Las Vegas he would never return as long as Becky held the ownership of the casino. She had finagled it in a dirty family fight after the death of father Benny and finally after the murder of brother Ted Binion, and Jack was having nothing to do with her or for that matter, having nothing to do with the city of Las Vegas as long as she was in town. (Ya think Sandy and Rick take requests?)

And so the idea was born to write Jack a letter signed by 1.25 million Las Vegans begging him for forgiveness. Begging him to come back and save the old casino. We still have a rail road in Las Vegas, and therefore a rail to run Becky out of town on if he would only take us back. It wasn't fair that this broad could ruin a Las Vegas icon that at one time was more popular than Caesars' Palace. It was unbearable to walk through the dark and quiet casino now looking like an old friend that was facing death and taken on an old and frail look, just a shell of their former selves. And with the added comments of the out-of-towners who were struck by the starkness of the casino and equally embarrassed to be there with me.

Having the same memory of the old Horseshoe in mind we constructed the letter together to what I hope is to everyone's satisfaction. And so here it is, if you agree just e-mail me and I'll sign you up.

Dear Jack,
HELP!!!!!!!!!

Your Pal,
Ken Pearlman
Las Vegas