The immediate result of the law was to make New Orleans an American Monte Carlo, the gambling centre of the United States. All the old local gamblers took advantage of the law and paid their license; but they found that they would not be allowed to occupy the field alone. The statute proved to be an advertisement of New Orleans throughout the Union, and gamblers flocked thither from New York, Baltimore, Cincinnati and St. Louis, to open places of business in a city, where it was not only free from inspection and supervision, but even legitimate.
Within a few weeks, St. Charles Street blossomed into one vast gambling hell. These resorts, some forty in number, and popularly known as “the forty thieves,” did a “land office business.” They were open night and day from the ground floor up. Every kind of gambling was carried on, with open doors, while runners on the outside enticed all passers by to enter. They had “all-round” saloons in which all kinds of games were played. The lower floor was commonly devoted to faro; roulette claimed the second story; while the third floor was set apart for keno. Generally one or two side rooms were fitted up for vingt-et-un and other games. Lunch settees and wine tables were prominent articles in their equipment, and everything was supplied which might make gaming attractive. There were no screens, the saloons opening immediately off the street; no limit was fixed, and boys and octogenarians were alike welcomed.
This state of affairs proved too much, even for the advocates of public gaming. St. Charles Street, the principal thoroughfare, had become a by-word and reproach, a very high-way of vice, if not of crime.
Notwithstanding the indignant protest of an outraged public, however, the law would have probably remained on the statute book had it not been, as has been already intimated, for the gamblers themselves. Not that they complained of the exaction of a license fee; that, they were willing to pay cheerfully. It was the ruinous competition in business which it brought about that constituted the ground of their dissatisfaction. The “old-timers” found themselves injured, not only in pocket but also in reputation, by the horde of confidence men, “steerers”, sharpers and “skin” gamblers, who had swept down upon New Orleans like vultures upon a carcass. The license law had proved a boomerang.
The influx of strangers had been so great that the demand for licences to keep gaming houses had grown to such proportions that New Orleans seemed destined to absorb and monopolize all the gambling of the entire country. A conference of those “to the manor born” was held, which was attended by Bush, Taylor, Harrison and others, at which, after a full interchange of views, it was determined that the wiser policy was to return to the old system and get rid of the new comers at any cost. They were strong enough, politically, to get what they wanted from the legislature, and the obnoxious law was repealed, and the auditor directed to return to the gamblers the fees paid for the new year.
The abolition of the license system, however, did not put an end to gambling. Some of the more recent arrivals departed for Texas, Long Branch, Washington, and other promising points, but the “old timers”, to the number of 100 to 110, continued to do business in the same way as usual, paying bribes into the pockets of the police instead of a license fee into the State treasury. As, however, the law prohibited gambling, some sort of a pretence was made at secrecy, although the houses were all well known, and one could hear in the street below the rattle of chips and the droning call of the dealer.
During the next ten years the gamblers did a fair business, notwithstanding the fact that they were freely blackmailed by the police. They recouped themselves, however, for this outlay by taking their revenge upon the police, and particularly upon strangers. Bunko flourished and “steerers” abounded, while some of the best known confidence men now traveling about the country acquired their first knowledge of the business at New Orleans during this period.
In 1880, yet another plan of indirectly regulating gaming was introduced. The new system was neither the imposition of license fees nor the secret extortion of “hush-money”, and was essentially different from that followed in any other city of the world up to that time. While gambling had been unlawful it had also been notorious. Not less than ninety houses spread their nets for victims, and over a thousand persons were employed in the nefarious calling. Bribery and corruption had taken the place of legal license, and through political influence the gambling fraternity had enjoyed comparative immunity.
In the year last mentioned, Mr. Shakspeare[Shakspeare] who had just been elected Mayor, determined to accomplish indirectly what had been forbidden by State law—the license of the houses. He looked upon this as the only available means of controlling and regulating a business which, however, reprehensible, seemed destined to “go on forever.”
He favored the license system as the best practical solution of the problem, inasmuch as under it the city would receive a share of the profits of the business while there might, at the same time, be police supervision of the establishments.