Beverly Hills Country Club illegal gambling Mafia Newport Kentucky Las Vegas

Description

Here is a one of a kind Beverly Hills Country Club jacket from the biggest club outside of Vegas.  This is possibly a Blackjack dealer’s jacket. You will not see this again once it is gone. A great part of gambling history as Northern Kentucky was the precursor to Vegas. If not for the pressure from law enforcement to close down clubs, Newport, Kentucky would have been the true gambling capital of America.
The BHCC was started in 1936 by Pete Schmidt, an associate of George Remus, famous bootlegger. The Cleveland Syndicate, headed by Moe Dalitz, Sam Tucker, Morris Kleinmann, and Rothkopf put enough pressure on Schmidt by robbing his payroll, setting off explosives on the club’s grounds, and burning down the club in 1936, that he gave up the club in 1940. The Beverly Hills Club fielded star-studded performances from the likes of Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. The latter was said to have been a cards dealer there early in his career.
I have not tried to clean this jacket. Attached, you will see some examples of jackets the BHCC used for its waiters that are very similar to this jacket, but those are from the early 1940s. This one seems a little simpler in design, so perhaps it is from the 1930s! A truly one of a kind piece.
The name tag is not original to the jacket, but it is from the club.
Later in 1977, after being rebuilt and named the Beverly Hills Supper Club after a 1970 fire, the club burned down again and 169 people lost their lives.