Binion followed dad's untamed style

Ted Binion perhaps captured more of the outlaw side of his famous father, Benny Binion, while his brother Jack and sister Becky Behnen perhaps inherited their dad's gaming savvy and business sense.

Ted was as wild as the winds of Texas, which were part of the dusty, unsettled American frontier when Benny was raised there -- the state where he opened his first gambling club, became a notorious bootlegger and ran numbers.

Ted perhaps was noted more for his battle to hold on to his gaming license -- something he failed to do -- amid drug use and associations with reputed mob figures than he was for contributing anything of significance to the gambling industry in which he was raised.

Indeed, Ted captured what many old-timers would say was the Las Vegas of yesteryear -- the Las Vegas that Benny Binion helped mold and would live to see crumble amid the onset of corporate-run gaming and the dawn of the megaresorts.

Benny Binion drove his wife, the late Teddy Jean Binion, and children to Las Vegas in 1947, barely one step ahead of Texas authorities who sought to make him pay for his transgressions there. As legend tells us, the Binions had suitcases stuffed with about $2 million.

In 1951, Benny bought the old El Dorado Casino, renamed it Binion's Horseshoe and a legendary Las Vegas gaming family was born.

He would go on to establish some of the world's highest limit gambling and, in 1970, start the World Series of Poker at the Horseshoe, among his many accomplishments in the gaming industry.

"I started learning (the gaming business) when I was 12," Ted Binion told the Wall Street Journal in an article published Aug. 24 -- 24 days before his death.

Even that boast more than flirted with the law because while one cannot gamble until one's 21st birthday, one also cannot work in the industry until reaching that plateau of adulthood.

In 1953, Benny's legal troubles caught up with him, and he wound up serving three years and three months in Leavenworth, Kansas, federal prison for tax evasion.

While Benny couldn't hold a gaming license for many years, he continued to run his property turning it into a successful downtown Las Vegas operation.

In 1960, just shy of his 23rd birthday, Jack Binion became the Horseshoe's president. But his dad, who split time between the resort and his Montana ranch, had a major hand in the way things were run until his death on Christmas Day in 1989.

In recent years, the Binion clan has been divided over a bitter feud to control the Horseshoe, which has an estimated worth of $80 million.

The feud centered around Jack, who has opened gaming properties in Mississippi and Louisiana, and his sister, Becky Behnen.

Jack had taken full control of the property following Teddy Jane's death in 1994. In 1996, Becky accused Jack of mismanaging the Horseshoe and paying too much attention to his other gaming properties.

In June, Behnen was approved by gaming regulators to operate the casino. She bought out her siblings.

Teddy, who long served as Horseshoe casino manager, did not achieve the fame of his father or older brother. But he sure came close to matching his dad's notoriety, at least in Las Vegas.

After years of battles with gaming officials, Ted's gaming license was suspended in March because of his associations with mob figures. His license also had been suspended in May 1997 because of his admitted drug use.

"I don't know any other way to make a living but this," Ted told the Nevada Gaming Commission during the 1997 hearing.

In June 1997, Ted's home was riddled with bullets during a drive-by shooting. In August of that year, Ted got into an argument with a gas station attendant and later threatened the man with a shotgun.

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