Aruba Casino of the Day

[Michael Siskin R-7387]

During the pandemic lockdown, I began a series of posts about the casinos of Aruba.  I never finished, but I hope to do so now.  Each of my installments will be posted as a reply to this message. 

In these posts I will examine the history of each casino location in Aruba and the casinos which were housed there through time.  I will post my collectibles from each and may include images I borrowed from the Web (as I did before).  I will also tell any history or stories I happen to know.  Feel free to respond with anything I missed or to tell your own stories, or just to comment however you wish to.

[Michael Siskin R-7387]

Aruba Casino of the Day - 81 JE Irausquin Part 1

In 2020, I was inspired by Pam G, Frank Steward and Richard Siri to organize my collection so I could make a post for each casino in Aruba. Early in my chip collecting, I was inspired by Pam, Charles Davis, Doug Deems and Mark Englebretson, each of whom collected casino items besides chips. I had playing cards long before I ever had any chips, and I was fascinated by the more complete picture the various items gave. Eric Miller correctly pointed out that matchbooks contain a lot of information you don't get on chips. Clearly this is true of brochures and other collectibles, too. So, I set out to expand my collection to anything reasonably small that I could easily store that had the casino name on it (and sometimes not even that, but connected to the hotel).

Anyway, I have decided to focus on one casino at a time. In Aruba, the casinos are generally affiliated with and often located in a hotel, but have different casino management companies which run them. So, when hotels change names, they usually change the casino. Sometimes, the hotels stayed the same, but hired different management companies, thus changing the name of the casino. One casino, The Casablanca, survived a few hotel ownership changes. So, it seemed most logical to organize the casinos by location, focusing on each casino at a location in chronological order.

I will begin with the first casino in Aruba, located in the first resort in Aruba, The Aruba Caribbean. The Aruba Caribbean was built and owned by a hotel company, Executive House Hotels, jointly owned by Dutch and U.S. owners.



The Hotel was managed by Henry Steeber, who was born in the Netherlands, but lived in the US, working at one of the other hotels owned by the hotel chain. He took many beautiful photographs, some of which I have copies of, but I was told I was not allowed to publicly display them, since his son is now a professional photographer and plans to use them in a book someday. The hotel and casino opened at 81 JE Irausquin Blvd, Palm Beach, in Noord, on July 18, 1959. The casino was run by Jake Kozloff, and owned technically by Kozloff and Clifford Jones. These are the CJ/JK whose initials show up on chips and dice from casinos all over the Caribbean and in South America as well. It is believed that they were working as fronts for Meyer Lansky and other mob shadow owners, but I have never been able to find any evidence to support this. If anyone knows of any, I would love to see it. Interestingly, Kozloff became the Godfather of Henry Steeber's son. Steeber's son had never heard of any mob connection to Kozloff, but he said it fit his personality.
The Aruba Caribbean Casino opened up using the well-known parrot chips, and later switched to a starfish-like design:



In Aruba, there are often two different chips for the smaller denominations. Sometimes, the different colors represent rack and credit chips. Sometimes, one design is used at specialty tables, such as Caribbean Stud (a game that originated in Aruba, but long after these chips were made). I don't know what they used these two sets for:




And, oh yeah, I collect samples and canceled chips, too:



There are only three tables of roulette chips known (and only one color is known for table C, and very few of those are known):



And here are some of my other collectibles:










They used a lot of swizzle sticks (yes, each one is different):



They also had matchbooks:







I also have saved a ton of scans/pictures from eBay auctions and otherwise on the internet. Here are some of those:













I hope this wasn't too much! Anyway, I don't have nearly this much for most of the other casinos. Tomorrow, 81 JE Irausquin, part 2.

Michael Siskin

[Michael Siskin R-7387]

Aruba Casino of the Day - 81 JE Irausquin Part 2

Some days, I will be covering casinos that I don't have many collectibles from. Today is the first of those days.

In 1975, The Aruba Caribbean's casino changed its name from the Aruba Caribbean to the Arusino. Interesting to note is that there was a casino on Bonaire called the Bonasino which, I believe, started around the same time. They both used the same chips. Since I have so little from the Arusino, I don't know if they had any other equipment in common. Some denominations of these chips ($5, $25 and possibly $100 chips were also used fairly recently at another Bonaire casino - the $1 chip remains more scarce).

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The only collectible I have from the casino itself is a match barrel I got from Don Lueders. In the last year or so before Don left the Chip Board, he made sure to give me an opportunity to buy anything from the Caribbean that he had, including his match collection. I got a few matchbooks from Don. I always found Don a joy to trade with/buy from. I miss his presence on this board.

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Jerry Birl, note the roulette wheel in the hole in the a at the end of the barrel. Also interesting to point out is that the telephone number has 4 digits. Aruba started by issuing 4 digit telephone numbers. I have matchbooks with 4, 5, 6 and 7 digit numbers. They still use 7 digit numbers today. When trying to research the dates of my matchbooks, I contacted the Aruba telephone company, several newspapers and the library to determine when Aruba began to use telephone numbers with the various numbers of digits. Apparently, there are no records which indicate when the numbers switched. I was able to learn that they began to use 7 digits in 2003, 6 in 1997 and that the 5 digit numbers go back at least as far as 1992.

Using the logo graphics and by asking sellers, I have determined that the following items are from the Aruba Caribbean hotel at the time when the Arusino was open:

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Here is one scan I saved of a die (not mine) from the Arusino Casino:

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I believe Eric Miller has a matchbox I don't have.  Maybe he will post it.  In fact, I encourage anyone who has any collectibles that I don't to go ahead and show them. I encourage even more anyone who has any collectible that I don't to offer to sell them to me.

Tomorrow, the Aruba Caribbean hotel changes owners.
 
Michael Siskin

[Barry Sherwood R-9037 (admin)]

What a great contribution to the CCA forums. Thanks for these posts!

[Michael Siskin R-7387]

Aruba Casino of the Day - 81 JE Irausquin Part 3

Today's casino features a twist, one that creates a bit of uncertainty and confusion! In 1986, the Aruba Caribbean, the resort, was sold to Golden Tulip. While the hotel name changed to the Golden Tulip, they changed the name of the casino from the Arusino BACK to the Aruba Caribbean Casino. This is the only time in the history of Aruban casinos that a closed casino name has been resuscitated and re-used. Unfortunately, Ralph Pollack did not differentiate between the various Aruba Caribbean casinos for their chip codes. It also appears that the new Aruba Caribbean used the starfish symbol, further confusing when specific collectibles were used. I feel very comfortable that all of the collectibles I showed in part 1 are from the first Aruba Caribbean. I am not as sure for all of the collectibles for the second Aruba Caribbean. I strongly believe the chips are correct. After that...it depends.

First, they used coin in center chips:

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Then, they used plastic inlay Bud Jones chips:

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I believe they used tokens as their one dollar chips.

They had two different $1 tokens, both issued in 1986.  I have no idea why.

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Here is some more stuff:

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Here's a fun one. Looks like a matchbook, but it's a...

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I don't keep records on where I got things, but I seem to think I have John Zoesch to thank for that one.

And, yes, they used the starfish emblem (as you can see in the first token):

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Note that the starfish in the postcard has a lower case "a" in it.  That is because that emblem was used for other islands with different initials.  In my borrowed images section, you can see a Do Not Disturb Sign with a "c" from the Condado Beach in Puerto Rico.

And some borrowed scans:

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And the Puerto Rican Do Not Disturb Sign:

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My next post will contain parts 4 and 5. I don't have much for either casino, so two casinos it is!

[Michael Siskin R-7387]

Aruba Casino of the Day - 81 JE Irausquin Parts 4-5

At some point, I have not been able to pinpoint when, The Golden Tulip was sold to the Radisson. I believe the sale happened in 1993, but it could have happened in 1998. In any case, on October 7, 1993, The Aruba Caribbean casino became The Casino Carnaval. There doesn't seem to be too much around for this casino. I have never seen matches or dice from there, and I only recently saw a playing card on Peter Achtel's casino playing card site (worth checking out if playing cards interest you in any way). So, here is what I have. There were two varieties of the $1 chips, which were made by Chipco Intl., linen and satin, but I have only seen a satin version of any other denomination.

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Here is a playing card from Peter Achtel's terrific site (https://casinoplayingcards.wixsite.com/cards):

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Apparently, the Casino Carnaval had a carnaval theme (think Mardi Gras). I have never seen any other collectibles from the Casino Carnaval.

On January 1, 1995, the Casino Carnaval became the Casino Masquerade. The Masquerade apparently continued the carnaval theme. They did not have their own chips. I assume they continued to use the Carnaval chips, but I don't know. Here is their token:

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And they had at least two different decks of cards:

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I don't have them, but the Masquerade has several silver strikes. Here are some borrowed scans (not from the Chip Guide, which probably has better images):

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That's it for today. If anyone has anything to show, or even better scans of the silver strikes, I would love to see them.

I hope you are enjoying these posts.

[Doug Balduini "Mr.Sahara" LM-8917-289]

Very Nice Michael !!!!!

[Michael Siskin R-7387]

Aruba Casino of the Day - 81 JE Irausquin Part 6


On March 1, 1998, the Radisson completely renovated the entire property. In 2000, the casino reopened as The Casino at the Radisson, or simply, "The Casino." In either case, possibly the worst casino name ever. The casino, however, was pretty fun. The table pit featured a dark blue ceiling with sparkling lights, symbolizing, I suppose, the clear Caribbean night. The also ran a nice poker room. One time I was there, they had a table full only of locals. I asked the brush what they were playing. He told me that before the resorts opened, there used to be a lot of illegal poker games in Aruba, but they played a game unique to Aruba. They had a three-ring binder with rules to the game, but they advised me not to play. Complicated rules, open to taking advantage of novices. I asked if they had a copy or if there was anywhere I could find the rules, but they just laughed.

I have a lot of collectibles from the Casino and I have a number of photos I took myself.  But first, their first series chips:

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Some thought there was a teal version of the basic $1 chip, but I am no longer convinced.  What do you think?

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Although commemorative and other limited edition chips have not been common in Aruba, they had one:


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And a cool ncv:

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Her are the second series chips:


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I don't have any tokens from the Radisson, but here are some oversized commemorative chips from a poker tournament run there by a now defunct online poker site:

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They had many different decks of cards:


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And some all plastic cards:


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The early players cards featured that blue starry dome:

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Look carefully and you can see the photo is different on this one (look at the couple in the middle):


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I'm don't think many of those ended up in collectors' hands.

Here are some later cards:

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Some more stuff:

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I have so much, I am posting the borrowed scans/photos in the next post.

[Michael Siskin R-7387]

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The next post brings us to the casino which is currently located at 81 JE Irausquin.

[Michael Siskin R-7387]

Aruba Casino of the Day - 81 JE Irausquin Part 7

Part 7...of 7! On July 15, 2015, 81 JE Irausquin Blvd. became a Hilton Hotel, and it is still the Hilton Aruba Caribbean Resort & Casino today. Yeah, they are paying tribute to its history as the Aruba Caribbean.  As we will see (eventually), Hilton owned a hotel in Aruba long before, but had not been in Aruba for some time. They renovated the hotel and casino (as for the casino, I have been told the renovations are not significant). The casino continues to be The Casino (oh why?), but no longer The Casino at the Radisson.

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I don't have a on of stuff and some of it looks exactly like what the casino at the Radisson used, but here it is:

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And a holder for your players card:

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Here are some borrowed images:

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Doug Balduini, thank you for one of your photos, maybe more, and anyone else I pilfered from (usually asking first).

And that is the history of the first resort in Aruba. On to resort number two in the next thread.

Michael Siskin

[Michael Siskin R-7387]

Believe it or not, I missed some stuff.  So, here is what I could remember:

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There is also a version of the first tray that has gold on the starfish design and the makers mark on the bottom.  I have seen a few for sale on ebay, but always in ratty condition.

I know I missed other things, but that's all I can remember right now.