Est. 1951 · Mob Era Las Vegas Casino · Birthplace of World Series of Poker · Ted Binion Murder Investigation
Benny Binion came to Las Vegas in 1946 after his illegal gambling operations in the Dallas-Fort Worth area lost political protection. He had a murder conviction from a 1931 killing — Binion pleaded guilty to shooting Frank Bolding, a rival rumrunner, and received a two-year suspended sentence. A 1936 indictment for the killing of competitor Ben Frieden was dismissed on self-defense grounds. Binion opened Binion's Horseshoe on August 14, 1951, purchasing the Eldorado Club and Hotel Apache on Fremont Street.
In 1953, Binion was convicted of federal tax evasion and served time at Leavenworth Penitentiary through 1957. His Nevada gaming license was revoked; he regained controlling interest in the casino after his release. Binion created the World Series of Poker in 1970 from an informal high-stakes game among ten players at his property; it grew into the most prestigious poker tournament in the world.
Benny Binion died of natural causes on December 25, 1989. His son Ted Binion had managed poker operations but was stripped of his gaming license in 1998 by the Nevada Gaming Commission for continued association with organized crime figures, specifically Herbert Blitzstein, a known mobster.
Ted Binion was found dead in his Las Vegas home on September 17, 1998. Toxicology showed a combination of heroin, Xanax, and Valium. His girlfriend Sandy Murphy and her associate Rick Tabish were convicted of murder in May 2000 — the prosecution argued they had drugged and suffocated him — and sentenced to 25 and 22 years respectively. The Nevada Supreme Court reversed both convictions in July 2003, ruling on jury instruction errors. At retrial in October 2004, both were acquitted of murder and convicted only on burglary and theft charges.
Sources
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binion%27s_Gambling_Hall_and_Hotel
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benny_Binion
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Binion
- https://www.binions.com/history.php
General atmospheric unease
Binion's appears in Las Vegas dark-tourism circuits as one of the Fremont Street properties with documented violent history in its founding family. The combination of Benny Binion's murder conviction, federal prison sentence, and mob-era connections gives the casino historical weight that most competitors lack.
Ted Binion's 1998 death in his Las Vegas home — not on the casino property — is the most frequently cited event in paranormal discussion of the venue. The murdered-or-overdosed ambiguity, the murder conviction and reversal, and the theft of millions in silver coins from his underground vault created a true crime narrative that has not attached a specific haunting to the casino's Fremont Street location.
Ghost tour operators occasionally include the exterior as a stop on Fremont Street dark-history walks, but no specific phenomena are documented in investigation records. The property's dark-tourism draw comes from its documented criminal history rather than paranormal reports.