Column One: The secret history of L.A.’s glitzy gambling boat kingpin — and the raid that sank him
Daniel Miller May 26, 2021
Law enforcement agents destroy a roulette wheel aboard the S.S. Rex gambling boat in 1939.
The government boats knifed across the Pacific, cutting a line toward the ship floating a little more than three nautical miles off the California coast.
The S.S. Rex was the biggest and most opulent gambling boat anchored off Santa Monica in 1939. And the man at the helm was a brash bootlegger-turned-gaming-kingpin who wore a white Stetson, lived in a Beverly Hills bungalow and held court at the Trocadero nightclub.
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