I'll Do My Own Damn Killin': Benny Binion, Herbert Noble, and the Texas Gambling War

by Gary W. Sleeper

In the early days, before he founded the Horseshoe Casino in Las Vegas and became the patron saint of the World Series of Poker, cowboy Benny Binion was a horse trader, a bootlegger, and the "boss gambler" of Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas. This book traces Binion's rise to power in the Dallas underworld during World War II. By 1946, more than two dozen "casinos" operated illegally in downtown Dallas in hotel suites, and Benny Binion owned at least half of them. The cowboy's only true rival for gambling supremacy in Texas was his former partner, Herbert Noble. For the first time ever, Gary Sleeper reveals the intricacies of the bloody feud between Binion and Noble, and their brutal war for control of Dallas and Fort Worth. Included are details of the thirteen attempts on Noble's life, the tragic murder of his wife, and Noble's bizarre plot to gain revenge by bombing Las Vegas from a private airplane.

Genres: True Crime, History

264 pages, Paperback

First published November 25, 2006

Reviews

[Frank]

Books on organized crime are an excellent means to better understand the cities in which the stories take place, but who would have thought that good old boys in Dallas, Texas would outdo the Mafia in terms of intrigue, vendetta and sheer explosiveness? If you're stuck on Mafia books, you'll want to broaden your horizons with Gary Sleeper's shocking tale of the Texas gambling war. If you're from Dallas, you owe it to yourself to read this, even if you're not necessarily interested in organized crime. Sleeper understands that good books on the underworld are portals into the history, geography, culture and local color of American cities. Dallas is as much a character as Benny Binion and Herbert Noble in the eye-popping power struggle depicted in this book. And no understanding of Las Vegas is complete without this backstory either. Hang on to your cowboy hat!

[Aaron Lester]

Interesting read on the mob, Dallas, gambling & all things gambling. Gets a little dull at times & can get too far in the weeds.

[Doug Haskin]

Interesting to learn about the Dallas history of Benny Binion, before he became a Las Vegas legend. However, the book is poorly written and difficult to follow. A maze of names, dates, and events piled up in short chapters, with the same kind of "foretelling" statement at the end of each chapter.

[Jim]

Interesting read on a chapter of Dallas history I knew nothing about.