DEADWOOD GAMING Betting on a Bright Future by Emily Pitz Just a few decades ago, Deadwood was a near ghost town with boarded up buildings and dusty remnants of the Wild West. People would stop to see where Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane and Seth Bullock became famous, but would then be on their way. The fall of 1989 brought a shift in Deadwood’s history with legalized gaming. No one imagined just how revolutionary introducing gambling would be for the town. At the time, it was only the third venue in the country to permit legal gambling, along with Nevada and Atlantic City, New Jersey. Today, Deadwood gaming is a major economic force in the northern Black Hills, generating nearly $100 million in
Photo courtesy of: South Dakota Tourism
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