Larry Flynt's Lucky Lady Casino is a

cardroom A cardroom or card room is a gaming establishment that exclusively offers card games for play by the public. The term poker room is used to describe a dedicated room in casinos that is dedicated to playing poker and in function is similar to a car ...

located in

Gardena, California Gardena is a city located in the South Bay (Los Angeles County), South Bay region of Los Angeles County, California, Los Angeles County, California, United States. The population was 58,829 at the 2010 census, up from 57,746 at the 2000 census. ...

. It replaced Normandie Casino. In 1940, the Western Club opened on Western Avenue. Seven years later, the club was renamed the Normandie, and Russ Miller became owner. As the city of Gardena grew, so did the card clubs. Their license fees provided most of the money needed to operate the city. During the 1960s, Gardena boasted six luxurious card clubs. It was the only city in

Los Angeles County Los Angeles County, officially the County of Los Angeles, and sometimes abbreviated as L.A. County, is the most populous county in the United States and in the U.S. state of California, with 9,861,224 residents estimated as of 2022. It is the ...

to have legal gambling. The clubs flourished until 1980, when the Bell Club in the city of

Bell, California Bell is an incorporated city in Los Angeles County, California, near the center of the former San Antonio Township (abolished after 1960). Its population was 35,477 at the 2010 census, down from 36,664 in the 2000 census. Bell is located on the ...

, opened. Other cities soon followed suit, and the Gardena monopoly on card gaming came to an end. In 1980, Russ Miller decided to move the Normandie Casino to a better location near the 110 Harbor Freeway at 1045 West Rosecrans Avenue. A new casino was constructed, along with a Las Vegas-style entertainment venue billed as "The Million Dollar Showroom". A few years later,

Seven-card stud Seven-card stud, also known as Seven-Toed Pete or Down-The-River is a variant of stud poker. Before the 2000s surge of popularity of Texas hold 'em, seven-card stud was the most widely played poker variant in home games across the United States, a ...

and Texas hold-em were added to the already existing lineup of games,

Five-card draw Five-card draw (also known as a Cantrell draw) is a poker variant that is considered the simplest variant of poker, and is the basis for video poker. As a result, it is often the first variant learned by new players. It is commonly played in ho ...

and Lowball. In the mid-1980s, a tremendous Asian influence came with the introduction of the California games, including

Blackjack Blackjack (formerly Black Jack and Vingt-Un) is a casino banking game. The most widely played casino banking game in the world, it uses decks of 52 cards and descends from a global family of casino banking games known as Twenty-One. This fami ...

, Pai Gow Poker, and Super 9, a game similar to

Baccarat Baccarat or baccara (; ) is a card game played at casinos. It is a comparing card game played between two hands, the "player" and the "banker". Each baccarat coup (round of play) has three possible outcomes: "player" (player has the higher score ...

. The Normandie completely revamped its restaurant to accommodate a variety of Asian tastes: Mandarin, Vietnamese, Thai, and Korean, along with a standard Continental menu. The Normandie Casino opened its famous Red Dragon Room which featured high-limit Asian games. The Red Dragon Room, with its additional outdoor

patio A patio (, from es, patio ; "courtyard", "forecourt", "yard", "little garden") is an outdoor space generally used for dining or recreation that adjoins a structure and is typically paved. In Australia the term is expanded to include roofed stru ...

, continues to be one of the most popular Asian gaming rooms in Los Angeles today. The casino is also host to a luxurious V.I.P. Blackjack and Baccarat Room, a first in Southern California. In 2016, several members of the Miller family had their gaming licenses revoked for

anti-money laundering Money laundering is the process of concealing the origin of money, obtained from illicit activities such as drug trafficking, corruption, embezzlement or gambling, by converting it into a legitimate source. It is a crime in many jurisdictions ...

violations, and they were given 120 days to sell the casino.

Larry Flynt Larry Claxton Flynt Jr. (; November 1, 1942 – February 10, 2021) was an American publisher and the president of Larry Flynt Publications (LFP). LFP mainly produces pornographic magazines, such as ''Hustler'', pornographic videos, and three por ...

, owner of the nearby

Hustler Casino Larry Flynt's Hustler Casino is a cardroom in Gardena, California, approximately 15 miles (25 km) south of Downtown Los Angeles, California, Downtown Los Angeles. It is owned by El Dorado LF, LLC. the successor company after founder Larry Fl ...

, won regulatory approval to purchase the Normandie in June 2016, with plans to rename it as Larry Flynt's Lucky Lady Casino.

References

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External links

Official website
Casinos in Los Angeles County, California Gardena, California