Harold Smith; Ex-Owner of Reno Casino : Ran Harolds Club, Which Was Founded by His Father, Until 1971

Harold S. Smith, whose father named a gambling club for him and then watched with amazement as migrants moving west adorned their Model A autos with his “Harolds Club or Bust” slogan, has died at the age of 75, it was announced Wednesday.

His attorney, Jack Streeter, said the colorful former owner of what once was Reno’s largest casino, died at his home in Reno on Monday of what was described as natural causes.

Once one of the most flamboyant figures on the gambling scene, Smith recently complained that he was a “has-been” who had lost much of the $2 million he received from the $11.5 million that Howard Hughes’ corporation paid for the club in 1971. Most recently Smith had been a partner in a Reno bar, but he was believed out of that operation at his death.

It was Smith’s father, Raymond (Pappy) Smith who developed the small club he named for his son in 1936 from a single roulette, solitary card table operation into a seven-story casino that once claimed to pour more liquor from its seven bars than any other saloon in the nation.

Much of that growth was laid to the “Harolds Club or Bust” campaign that expanded from billboards to the sides of buses and cars during the Depression-era migration. The club grew further when World War II servicemen headed for the Pacific stopped in Reno for their first legal gambling experience.

Young Smith fit comfortably into the often bizarre gambling scene. He would sometimes run through the club with a butterfly net, chasing one of his two sons. He would announce free drinks over the public address system and was believed to be the first major casino owner to hire women as dealers to replace the men who had gone to war.

Smith himself was no stranger to the gaming tables, once estimating that he had lost hundreds of thousands of dollars on cards and dice.

“When I work, I work hard; when I play, I play hard,” he often said.

In his 1961 book, “I Want to Quit Winners,” Smith wrote: “She’s a spiteful hag, this Lady Luck, or a softly carved beauty, and a faint heart never won her favors.”

Smith had a reputation for providing bus fare home for those patrons who ran afoul of Lady Luck. He also set up college scholarships for Reno students and sponsored a series of classical concerts.

Smith, survived by his sons, three daughters, two brothers and two sisters, was believed the last in a long line of gaming pathfinders dating from an era when families and not conglomerates operated Nevada’s casinos.

He acknowledged that special relationship, but he also complained that he had grown up in the shadow of his father, who died in 1967. “My pappy and I were partners, but when I lost my daddy, I couldn’t run Harolds Club.”