They soon butted heads with the descendants of the original pioneers. Members of the Italian Mafia sent men to establish their own casinos in the city. After much lobbying by the delegates from Sun City, the bill to legalize gambling was passed with enough restrictions so that only Sun City would be the major town to benefit from the new law.Īs the Depression faded and the United States became more prosperous, the town began to boom with an influx of tourist coming in to take their chance to make their fortune. In 1931, Arizona passed a measure legalizing gaming in the state. Even then, the town had a reputation for rowdiness. Saloons and brothels filled the main street of the town, promising an oasis of sin in the middle of the desert. The most glamorous and prominent of those casinos sit on the Sun City Strip, the large thoroughfare that runs west to east through the city.įounded in the late 1800's, the small town served as a stop in the desert for travelers heading west to California. Over a dozen casinos are scattered around the city. Located on the Arizona/California border, Sun City is the gambling capital of the nation. Sun City is a municipal area in the American Southwest.

To Roderick, there was nothing more American than that.'

The game was rigged and the house always won in the end. Bright lights and the hope, the prospect that anybody could get lucky and hit it big. This town was America right down to its core. He remembered it as a sleepy desert town forty years ago and now it was the booming pleasure capital of America and Roderick loved every bit of it. He was a Sun City native, his dad an original city councilman back when the town was first incorporated. Early in the evening and the town was already lit up in full glitz and glamor mode. ~ 15% African-American~ 10% Mexican~ 5% Other '.

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