June 16th, 2009 | 
Author: Contrary to popular belief, prior to the arrival of casinos in Atlantic City in 1973, there was one locale in America, one oasis in the gambling-dry desert of the continental United States, where a thriving slot-machine metropolis was going strong, 24-hours-a-day, every day: Waldorf, Maryland.
Waldorf is but a dot on the map, a small locality on the highway that's less than an hour away from Washington, D.C. Here, during the 1950s and the late 60s, there were twenty busy slot machine palaces dotting the highway, strictly coin casinos with no table games, bearing familiar names such as The Golden Nugget and The Sands. How or why these came into existence, and why they were phased out by the early 70s is still unclear to me. But looking back on the scandal-ridden history of the politics of Maryland's state government at the time—one governor was removed from office, and former Maryland Governor Spiro Agnew had to resign the Vice Presidency under fire when it was proven that he was still getting payoffs from Maryland's shady enterprises even after he became Vice President—maybe it does add up. Besides, some of the proprietors of the Waldorf slot machine palaces looked like characters that stepped right out of Mario Puzo's The Godfather.
Whenever the annual American Booksellers Convention was held in Washington, D.C.—and for a period during the sixties it was anchored there—I'd make it my business to take at least one side trip to Waldorf, especially if I was attending the convention with a lady that I wanted to impress. One pretty miss who had never been in a casino—in fact, had never ever in her life even set eyes on a slot machine—was bowled over by the slot machine city. Trying her luck, she walked up to a four-quarter, double-barreled bandit, dropped in her six quarters, and spun the wheels for the first time in her life. Naturally, she hit the jackpot for $250.
Recently I was on a Greyhound bus going south and passed through Waldorf. No more slot machines, and no more crowds. Fun City was no more.
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