August 26, 1980 – Stateline, Nevada (ScoopSignal Odd News)
A Lake Tahoe gambler’s luck finally ran out—in truly explosive fashion—when he tried to blow his way out of debt, quite literally. On this day, John Birges Sr., a Hungarian immigrant with a flair for the dramatic and a considerable casino tab, attempted to erase his gambling losses by planting a home-built bomb inside Harvey’s Resort Hotel. Birges demanded $10million, wagering with the FBI that his “unlike any we’d seen before” contraption would ensure a big payout or an even bigger boom.
The silver metallic bomb, housed in a typewriter case and filled with over 1,000lbs of dynamite, left authorities stunned. “It looked like something out of a comic book villain’s lair,” one agent reportedly said, surveying wires and switches as inscrutable as a bad slot machine.
For 34 tense hours, bomb experts sweated over the device. In the end, they failed to disarm it, and Harvey’s casino got a new skylight the hard way: the bomb detonated, gutting part of the building but, by nothing short of Nevada luck, causing no casualties.
Asked for comment, one local dryly mused, “I guess you really can’t beat the house.”
Oddly enough, Birges designed his bomb to be disarmed—if only the FBI had magically solved his booby-trapped brainteaser. Instead, he was caught, convicted, and sentenced to life behind bars, perhaps pondering new odds on prison yard chess matches.
Twist: Eighteen years earlier, in Sydney, would-be robbers tried a similar casino caper with a satchel full of fake explosives—proving some bets never pay out, but at least sometimes the stakes are less… combustible.
Sources: Tahoe Quarterly • FBI Archives • Las Vegas Review-Journal