Nevada casinos grossed nearly $1 billion during the last fiscal year—$936.3 million, to be exact. Of this amount, $74.4 million went to the state in taxes: and in a state of only half a million citizens, that amounts to about 43 per cent of the entire state budget. Nevada is, moreover, a right to work state, has no state income tax, and imposes a sales tax only half that of neighboring California. How did it get to be the One True State?
It began in 1859, when the Corn-stock Lode was discovered at Virginia City. Stagecoaches took gold and passengers between Carson City, where the stamping mills had been built, and the mint in the small town of San Francisco. The coaches returned from San Francisco with gold-seekers, adventurers, gamblers, loose women, and supplies. By 1869 the transcontinental railroad ran through the capital city of Reno, and four years later came the discovery of the Big Bonanza, a bluish mud which was ignored by the gold-seekers, but turned out to be silver; and by 1882 the Comstock was in borasca.
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