Dai Loy Gambling House Museum

Built in 1915 by Bing Lee, this gambling hall was in continuous operation until 1950 when the Sacramento County officials closed its doors. The name Dai Loy means ‘Big Welcome’ in Chinese. Pai Ngow, Fan Tan, and the Chinese lottery using 80 Chinese characters were the games of chance that were popular among Chinese gamblers. It is now restored as a museum with displays of the games and tables and Chinese artifacts as well as archival photographs from the Delta.

The Dai Loy gambling hall building was constructed in 1916 by Lee Bing, and operated as a gambling establishment until Sacramento County officials forced its doors to close in 1951. The name Dai Loy in Chinese translates to “Big Welcome.”

A bench was placed outside for a watchman to sit, with a secret button hidden below to alert dealers inside of any approaching sheriff’s raids. The rectangular window next to the big Dai Loy sign is a loft where a night watchman stayed to safeguard the building. It also allowed the watchman to overlook the gambling activities and prevent any cheating by the patrons.

The two skylights in the building were designed as the primary ventilation to bring in light and remove smoke. Most of the patrons were heavy smokers. They have since been covered to preserve the display artifacts.

All windows in the building were boarded up. All the doors were fortified with stronger and thicker woods to prevent and discourage robbers and raids.

Only men were allowed to gamble in the gambling hall, perhaps to avoid any domestic arguments inside. The gambling house was open to both Chinese and non-Chinese people.

The Chinese lottery tickets, pai gow, fan tan, blackjack, and high-lows were popular games played in the gambling house.

The Chinese lottery tickets were played with 80 Chinese characters painted on the ping pong balls and the tickets. The balls were tumbled in a revolving wire basket cranked by hand. The first ten or twenty balls, depending on the game, which rolled out of the cage were matched to the winning tickets, whereupon big prizes could be won. The game was later westernized by replacing 80 characters with numbers 1 to 80, which opened it up to other ethnic groups to play. The game was later played in casinos in different States with a new name, Keno.

Pai Gow is an ancient Chinese gambling game played with 32 domino-like tiles, where players form two hands, a high hand and a low hand, to beat the dealer’s hand.

Fan-tan is a game of pure chance. The game is played by placing two handfuls of small objects on a board. In Dai Loy, it is played with buttons. The game is to guess the remaining count of the buttons when divided by four. After players have cast bets on values of 1 through 4, the dealer repeatedly removes four buttons from the board until only 1,2,3, or 4 buttons remain, determining the winner.

The Sacramento River Delta Historical Society volunteers worked together with Ping Lee, and the son of Lee Bing, to restore the gambling hall to its original form and open it to the public as a museum in April 1977. Most the gaming tables and equipment were donated by Ping Lee. The building was sold to Clarence Chu in 1985.