When one thinks of gambling, the classic image is a man pulling on a slot online machine or playing serious casino table games. However, the truth is that women have always gambled as well.
Lottie Deno, aka Poker Alice, was a force to be reckoned with in the Wild West. She was skilled at poker and bested the likes of Doc Holiday.
Lottie Deno
Lottie Deno was an expert poker player and a notorious gambler in frontier Texas. She was a colorful character about whom many books have been written, including novels by Edgar Rye and J. Marvin Hunter. Her story also was told in the popular TV show Gunsmoke.
Lottie was born in Warsaw, Kentucky in 1844. Her father, a wealthy plantation owner who loved to race horses, took her on trips to gambling casinos throughout the country. He also taught her how to play poker.
After her mother’s death, she went to Detroit with a jockey friend of hers named Johnny Golden and worked on riverboats up and down the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. Eventually, she left Golden and moved to San Antonio, where she became an excellent poker player and met Frank Thurmond. Eventually, she married him and settled in Deming, New Mexico, where she gave up her gambling life and helped found an Episcopal church.
Dona Maria Gertrudis Barcelo
Maria Gertrudis Barcelo, known as La Tules (a diminutive of her given name) earned a considerable amount of money as a gambler and Monte dealer in early 19th century New Mexico. Her story is told in conflicting accounts, with writers of her day portraying her as either a garishly dressed temptress who lured men into her gambling houses to ruin them or an accomplished businesswoman.
She constructed an opulently designed casino and hotel in Santa Fe in 1835, relying on the voracious gambling appetites of American and Mexican traders on the lucrative Santa Fe Trail. She was an expert at dealing with Monte, a card game dubbed “mountain” because of the mound of cards that remained after a deal, and she was also brilliant at reading her customers.
Despite her proclivity for parlor slot gacor games, Madame La Tules was considered a respectable businesswoman and kept her dowry and guaranteed all of her own property at the time of her marriage to Manuel Sisneros on June 20, 1823, in Tome, New Mexico Territory. She had two sons, both of whom died in infancy, and adopted another daughter.
Alice Hukert
While many people associate gambling with men, women can be just as shrewd when it comes to a well-judged flutter. In fact, some women have even made it big in this male-dominated industry, with one notable example being Norwegian poker player Annette Obrestad.
She began her career in the world of online poker and has been a force to be reckoned with ever since. Her achievements include deep runs at the World Series of Poker main events and amassing over $3 million in live tournament earnings.
Another notable female gambler is Lottie Deno, who carved her way into the Wild West gambling scene in 1860 and laid the foundations for future women gamblers. Born in Kentucky in 1844, her real name is unknown but she was nicknamed ‘Deno’ (a play on the word dinero) and was renowned for her poker skills. She also ran a few brothels and was stern and fierce, once shooting a man who overstepped her boundaries in one of her establishments.
Carlotta Thompkins
Carlotta Thompkins, better known as Lottie Deno, was a female gambler who fought hard for her rights in the Wild West. The Kentucky native was an expert card player and was able to make a living for herself through her gambling skills.
After her father died in the Civil War, she turned to judi slot gambling as a way to support herself. She traveled to several places in the United States and Europe where she was able to practice her skills. She was able to rub shoulders with famous people and wealthy businessmen during her time.
After moving to Texas, she took on the nickname Lottie Deno, a play on her last name, and “lotta dinero,” a popular phrase among the gamblers of that time. Jan Devereaux sheds the white gloves in Pistols, Petticoats & Poker, her candid biography of Deno that explores her mercenary youth. The book also provides an insight into how the gambler handled her life in the Wild West.