When slot machines were illegal

Francesco Castiglia, better known as Frank Costello, was already a big time gangster in New York City in the 1930s, when Huey Long was at his peak of power.
Among other things, Costello controlled the Luciana family’s slot machines in the Big Apple — until 1934, when New York Mayor Fiorella La Guardia confiscated thousands of Castello’s slots, loaded them on a barge, and dumped them into the Atlantic.
That put a dent in Costello’s New York operation, but he quickly found a new place for the one-armed bandits when Huey said he could put the machines in Louisiana. Long, ever generous, said he would take only ten percent of the profits.
Over the next two decades, the slot machines spread into practically every restaurant, grocery store and liquor store in the state. They were everywhere, making money for a lot of people. In addition to Huey’s ten percent take, the state actually set a $100 per year tax on each slot machine in the state, even though they were not legal.
That’s why State Police Superintendent Francis Grevemberg was not always the most popular fellow when he began busting up the machines in the early 1950s. In his biography, he says that he led more than a thousand surprise raids against gambling joints, and that he destroyed 8,229 slot machines.
His raiders got to south Louisiana in mid-October 1953, when, according to one press account, “sledge-hammer wielding state policemen raided bars and restaurants, snatching up hundreds of slot machines and busting them into just a mess of springs and gears.”
Grevemberg never dreamed that one day the slots and other machines would be legal in casinos across the state, and optimistically told the press after the 1953 raid that “after we have seized all of them, it will finish slot machines in Louisiana.”
In a 1989 interview with The Associated Press, Grevemberg said gambling-related corruption was so pervasive in Louisiana in the 1950s that he had to keep the raids secret from local sheriffs and police chiefs and even some of his own troopers for fear they would warn the targets.
The October 1953 raids hit places in Crowley, Duson, Rayne, Breaux Bridge, Eunice, Opelousas, Mamou, and Basile.
In response, a Crowley businessman filed criminal charges against Superintendent Grevemberg for stealing his slots, and the young city judge, Edmund Reggie, signed a warrant for Grevemberg’s arrest. The superintendent was in fact served with an arrest warrant, although he never was jailed.
Another Crowley businessman got a state court injunction stopping the police from breaking up his machines. He was represented by a young Crowley attorney who later showed more than a little interest in gambling. Edwin Edwards argued that the machines had to be legal since they were taxed by the state.
The whole question became moot when Earl Long was elected governor in 1956. He didn’t make the machines legal, but did announce that state police would no longer “harass and intimidate” citizens with such unholy raids. Grevemberg was also a candidate in that 1956 race for governor, finishing fourth behind Uncle Earl, New Orleans Mayor deLesseps Morrison, and Frederick Preaus, a car dealer from Farmerville.
Grevemberg’s crusade was the subject of a 1958 film by Universal Studios titled Damn Citizen. The role of the superintendent was played by Keith Andes, who is probably better remembered for playing Marilyn Monroe’s boyfriend in the 1952 film Clash By Night.
Even after he was replaced as superintendent Grevemberg continued to speak out against illegal gambling, and was a vocal critic of gambling legal and illegal in Louisiana until his death in 2008 at the age of 94.
A collection of Jim Bradshaw’s columns, Cajuns and Other Characters, is now available from Pelican Publishing. You can contact him at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.