Mark Rogers

The Oral History Program under the University of Nevada, Reno conducts taped interviews with those figures who have impacted the development of Nevada. For two days in 1973, Mary Ellen Glass sat down with Lester Benny Binion. The interview covered Binion's childhood, careers in Texas and Las Vegas, while emphasizing the Horseshoe and his family. The transcript is a fascinating read and not lost is Binion's Texan dialect.
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By 1973 the popularity of the World Series of Poker had just began to bud. The year prior Thomas "Amarillo Slim" Preston won the event and took his prize on the road appearing on many radio and television spots including the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Still at this time, Mary Ellen Glass did not dig that deep into the event as I might have hoped for. In fact, only two letter style sheets are dedicated to the WSOP, and even then the tournament is only mentioned, not from direct questioning, but from Binion discussing the advertising involved in running the Horseshoe. He briefly describes the action between Puggy Pearson and Johnny Moss in the '73 Main Event, but the majority of the excerpt is devoted to one man, Jimmy 'the Greek' Snyder.
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"The first year, when he (the Greek) put on the poker game here for us, he didn't charge us anything. Howard Hughes had just let him go, and he wanted to prove hisself, what he could do, he just took this poker game. Hell! Nobody thought you could get this much publicity out of this poker game! I didn't, but he did. He said, "I just want to show 'em what I can do with this poker game. Let me have it."
We said, "You got it!"
He put it in seven thousand newspapers. So I'd say that's pretty doggone good."
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I agree. Snyder's promotion came before the pocket cam, rabbit cam and cheesy ESPN coverage; not an easy sell. He narrated the first television documentary of the WSOP in 1973. And if you happen to bootleg that one at the market, you might find it to be the best WSOP coverage to date; old school in the truest sense, and bluntly real.
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Binion goes on to describe Snyder as having "a lot of personality, he's a good speaker...And I think he can just get about as good as coverage as anybody. Fact of business we use him exclusive for the poker game." The game was lucky to have the notorious Snyder as a spokesman in the early stages. After 1973, CBS began regular documentaries on the event into the 80's, then ESPN eventually took over in the 90's and the circus culminated with the 2003 poker media explosion. A lot of poker players are rich today, outside of the playing itself, thanks to Snyder's promotional seeding.
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Interesting note: Doyle Brunson received his nickname when Snyder planned to announce Brunson to the crowd as "Texas Doyle" but instead mistakenly uttered "Texas Dolly". The nickname stuck.
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Mark Rogers is a poker historian and author of "52 Greatest Moments World Series of Poker"
www.52pokermoments.com