Chance Elson by W.T. Ballard

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. 1959. Pocket Books. Cardinal Edition.

Chance Elson was a gambler - young, ambitious and fresh. Las Vegas was a depression town, a green strip in the desert with too many honky-tonks and not enough customers.

But things were changing and Chance was the man who led the way. He had the gut to face up to the racket boys -and the vision to know that one day Las Vegas would be more famous than Monte Carlo, more lush than Miami Beach.

This is his story and the story of America's most fabulous cities. It is as tough and brutal as the Syndicate gangsters who tried to take over a state with bullets and blackmail; as glamorous as Judy Swensen, the only woman Chance Elson loved; as exciting as seven straight passes at a crap table.