'And I want to go beyond the best be the best I can be. 'I said, 'I want to be in a small, local place,' ' remembered Berkin. The new property also got the attention of Bernice Boykin, who had been a waitress on the Strip and wanted a change. 'But people soon recognized that it was a full-service casino.' 'It got the name Bingo Palace with the addition of the Bingo game here, or the Bingo parlor,' said Gauger. Newspapers from the mid-70s ran multiple ads for bingo parlors in major hotels every day. The main owners - Frank Fertitta Jr., Jerome Snyder and Carl Thomas - must have noticed that in the late 1970s, bingo was big in Las Vegas. Gauger had not quite started his long career at what was called simply The Casino in 1976, but he had watched it going up.
'Matter of fact, when they told me they were building it over here, I told them they were crazy,' longtime employee Henry Gauger told News 3 in 2011. Station Casinos got its start in a modest structure, at what was then a surprising location. LAS VEGAS (KSNV News3LV) - A gaming giant geared more toward locals is celebrating its 40th anniversary.
