Nevada Gambling Museum, A Good Bet

They are works of art just as sure as anything by Van Gogh, Monet, Rembrandt and DaVinci, and they have been the best-kept secret on the Comstock for 14 years.

With names like Caille, Watling, Jennings and Mills, they are about 100 vintage slot machines at the Nevada Gambling Museum in Virginia City.

The collection is owned by local businessman Angelo Petrini, who has put forth considerable time and expense restoring the American treasures back to their original condition. Next to the Fey brothers' Liberty Belle collection in Reno, it is the finest private collection in the country.

With the machines as the centerpiece, the museum is really dedicated to the history of gambling in America. Chronicling gambling from ancient times to the present, the museum contains numerous artifacts: guns, knives, cheating devices and games of chance where fortunes were won and lost on the turn of a card and a roll of the dice.

"Thousands of people have seen this museum since its opening in June of 1988," says Nancy Winkler, who was on duty, "and are totally blown away by what's inside this building."

Winkler is not exaggerating, for a stroll into the 1870s saloon and poker room is to enter a virtual time warp of the West of more than a century ago. Although only a prop, the saloon is so authentic that several video companies have used it as a backdrop for productions.

The museum also contains life-size statues of Western characters with slot machines built into their bellies. Only 92 of the sculptures were built by Frank Polk in Reno in the late 1940s, and four of them can be found here.

The Nevada Gambling Museum has a display honoring the Fey family. Charles Fey, (1862-1944) invented the first self-paying slot machine in San Francisco in 1898, and named it the Liberty Bell. Only three are known to exist today and are extremely valuable. The Liberty Bell is not in the museum, but is on permanent display at the Liberty Belle Saloon and Restaurant in Reno, owned by Frank and Marshall Fey, grandsons of Charles Fey.

The Liberty Belle's future is somewhat clouded. The restaurant is in legal limbo with the Reno Sparks Convention and Visitors Authority, which wants to buy the property and relocate the business away from the front of the newly expanded convention center. In December, the convention authority tabled discussion on the matter for 90 days.

Located at the Palace Emporium Mall, 20 S. "C" St. in Virginia City, museum hours until March 1 are weekends only 11 a.m.-5 p.m.; after that, the museum is open from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. daily. Admission is $1. The museum has a large gift shop where hundreds of items relating to the gaming industry can be purchased.