When people think back to the Wild West days in American history, they imagine dusty desert towns, brave cowboys, old frontier settlers, and – most importantly – a seemingly lawless land which saw many men make their own rules by way of the gun. But one thing many people often forget about this time period is that gambling played a heavy part in it – most notably poker! The same Wild West legends that made names for themselves with six-shooters, such as Doc Holiday and Wyatt Earp, also carved a name out for themselves at the poker tables. With this in mind, let’s take a look at how the West was won in the game of poker.                                                         

Most history buffs consider the Wild West to be the time period after 1865 (when the Civil War ended), in which lots of Americans began settling the largely uninhabited Western part of the United States. Many gambling establishments and saloons were already in place from the Gold Rush of 1849, but they weren’t populated again until the days of the Wild West.

 

Since many of the people who moved out West were already gambling on having a better life there than in the East, playing gambling games such as poker wasn’t a far stretch for them. The people who formed around these tables were a mixed crowd of businessmen, cowboys, lawmen, soldiers, miners, and railroad workers. Most of the games took place within saloons, since these were the dominant setting for poker games in the West. 

 

As these games combined elements of gambling, drinking, and people from varying backgrounds, it wasn’t uncommon for disputes to break out among players. The bad thing about these disputes was that many of them turned violent and some even ended in death. This is why many of the people who played at these tables carried a gun or knife and sat with their backs to the wall so they could see an attack coming. 

Since quite a bit of the Wild West is comprised of folklore and tall tales, some of its most notable names grew into legends. And as more and more people made their way out West, more and more stories of incredible feats by these legendary players were passed around – particularly in popular mining towns such as Tombstone, Leadville, and Deadwood.

 

Doc Holliday was one such legend who built up quite a reputation during his travels through the Old West. Suffering from tuberculosis, Holliday would consume large amounts of alcohol to control his cough and would play quite a bit of poker while in the saloons. Eventually, Holliday made his way to the Western mining towns to find legal gambling in these areas. 

 

Doc would definitely find his gambling in these towns along with plenty of trouble. In one instance, a noted bully named Ed Bailey was skeptical of Holliday’s reputation and began looking at the discard pile in the middle of their poker game. Despite Holliday’s warning Bailey kept doing it, so Doc raked the pot, causing Bailey to draw his gun. Ed Bailey never got the shot off, though, since Holliday sliced him open with a knife. 

 

Holliday was lucky to have the law on his side, too, since fellow Wild West legend and friend Wyatt Earp was on his side. Earp was a poker player as well and known for his various feats as a lawman. In what is his most legendary story, Earp and Holliday assisted Virgil and Morgan Earp at the O.K. Corral gunfight. In the O.K. Corral gunfight, the Earps and Holliday defeated members of a cowboy gang in a huge gun battle.

 

Another lawman and poker player who became famous in the Wild West was Wild Bill Hickok. Wild Bill was a little more infamous than Wyatt Earp, though, because he had once stood trail for murder and had threatened people with his gun during poker games. Ant it was during a game of poker that Hickok’s life came to an end, as he was shot in the back of the head by Jack McCall while playing. 

Just as gold prospecting had become a huge part of the Wild West, so had gambling and games like poker had caught on in a big way. But, for better or for worse, Western states and towns realized they needed to do something to control the sometimes violent gambling culture that had been formed. Soon, local governments intervened and began setting up laws and restrictions on the gambling activities taking place in the Wild West.

 

The moves were made in part because there were too many fights and violent acts taking place during activities such as poker games. But another big reason was that many state and city governments wanted to get a piece of the action in the form of taxes. The laws were extremely tough to enforce, however, and so many places just started outlawing gambling all together. 

 

In the late 1800’s, stronger law enforcement settled into the area and the Wild West began to become a thing of the past. The saloon poker games were reduced, too, because a new set of laws was enacted, and legalized gambling started becoming the norm. The overall prominence of unregulated gambling and poker games began to waver and established gambling in states like Nevada took over. 

 

It was clear that the Wild West days of poker and gambling were all but over. However, the legends that the West made, the classic saloon poker games, and the gambling culture of the Wild West will always live on throughout history.