Las Vegas legend: The Sands' pool dice table was not real

The image showing customers playing dice in a pool, one of the most iconic photographs of gambling in Las Vegas, is fake. The caption in the UNLV Special Collections archive refers to customers playing dice at a table in the pool at the Sands and to about 2,200 guests who tried it in 1954. But almost none of this sentence is accurate.

The archive caption is said to have been taken from notes on the photo's sleeve. This note is believed to have been written when the photos were sent to news agencies without verification. As a result, many websites and social media posts today describe the Sands' floating dice table as an experiment that lasted about a year but did not succeed. The Las Vegas Review-Journal also repeated unproven claims in its August 29, 2017 article.

More than 73 years have passed since the photographs were taken, yet no other frame showing a session with different players has surfaced. Historian Larry Gragg wrote in the Spring 2008 issue of the Nevada Historical Society Quarterly that the game was designed by Sands public relations director Al Freeman. On June 30, 1953, Freeman placed real dice, roulette and blackjack tables in the pool, gathered customers, equipped the dealers with traditional glasses and armbands, and had everyone go outside for the photograph. It also seems unlikely that a real dice game was being played at that time.

The photographs were taken by the Las Vegas News Bureau. The bureau was established in 1948 by the public relations firm Steve Hannagan and Associates for the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, and was originally named the Desert Sea News Bureau. Its purpose was to sell Las Vegas, not to practice journalism. In 1955 the Chamber of Commerce took over the bureau, and since 1992 it has continued to exist as an archive maintained by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.