If you don’t think poker is in a transitional time, you’re stupid you should. A sign of this old-timer era being put out to pasture went virtually overlooked at the start of this WSOP or maybe a little before it — I’m not sure and not even the RJ (Las Vegas Review-Journal to you tourists) covered the actual move … but anyhow, yes, in case you didn’t notice, the famous Benny Binion statue has been relocated … from Fremont street downtown to right in front of the escalators at the new equestrian center at South Point Casino:

Seriously, can you believe no one covered this?

photo: Gene Bromberg

Binion, of course was the Dallas boy who played a huge role in bringing poker — and indirectly old-school Texas Hold’em — to Las Vegas. He also was one of the key players who started a hospitality arms race in LV, not to mention giving gamblers lots of extra-nice goodies for free or cheap. That era is clearly leaving Las Vegas, with or without poker.

By the way, check out this bit of Binion history, from more than 70 years ago:

In 1936 Dallas unofficially adopted a policy of tolerance toward minor vices, the better to host the Texas Centennial celebration. Police wouldn’t put gamblers out of business, but would raid and fine them from time to time. Binion had crap tables built specially in crates labeled as containing hotel beds. “If we had half an hour’s notice we were going to be raided, we could clear it out,” Binion told a reporter in the ’70s.
Even in the Depression, Dallas was flush with oil money. During World War II, entire divisions of GIs learned to shoot craps in barracks and motor pools, and many headed for Dallas to buck the bigger banks and honest dice Binion was known to provide.

Sound familiar?