Benny's Dolls and the World Series Quilt

In 1987 my wife, Evelyn, and I presented the famous Benny Binion dolls to Mr. and Mrs. Binion at the Horseshoe. Evelyn has been sewing since she was a young girl living on a sheep ranch with her folks in Wyoming - she can take a glimpse of something and then sew a copy of it, she's that good - and it took her four months to make the dolls.

Down to the smallest detail, the two dolls were miniature replicas of Benny and Teddy Jane Binion. The Coker Hat Company in Fort Worth made an authentic cowboy hat for the Benny Binion doll. Coker had a size-4 hat block that it had used to fill a special order for a baby's cowboy hat, and it was used to make Benny's hat for me. It cost $300, but I felt lucky to find it. Then, Evelyn made an exact copy of the famous buffalo coat that Benny liked to wear during press conferences out of some fake buffalo fur. She even sewed tiny gold buttons on his shirt. She dressed the Teddy Jane doll in a white mink coat just like the one that Mrs. Binion liked to wear, and placed a miniature pair of glasses on its face.

When we gave the dolls to him, Benny set up a special presentation ceremony in the steak house at the Horseshoe. He was so proud of those dolls, he had them mounted in a glass case that hung at the entrance to the Sombrero Room for years. I estimate that while the dolls were there, 12 million people looked at them while they were standing in line to get into the restaurant. Lots of folks who came to the Horseshoe had never seen Benny and Teddy Jane, so the dolls were quite a treat for them.

I remember when we first unpacked them in our room at the Horseshoe before we presented them to the Binions. A maid was straightening up our room, and when she saw the dolls, she cried, "Lordy, lordy, that's them, that's them!" Then, Chip Reese and Doyle Brunson came up to see them and couldn't believe how realistic they were. Blackie Blackburn was helping to form an association of poker players at that time, and before we presented the dolls to the Binions, he offered us $15,000 for them. He wanted to give them to Benny himself as a gift from the players association.

After Benny died and the casino was remodeled, the dolls were removed from their place of honor and stored in a basement room. (That kind of hurt my feelings, you know what I mean?) I knew that Mrs. Binion never threw away anything, no matter what it was; she would even pick up rubber bands off the floor, bind them together, and save them. So, I called the Horseshoe, found out where the dolls were stored, and brought them home with me for safekeeping.

The next year, Evelyn made another one-of-a-kind, the "World Series of Poker Quilt." She sewed a picture of every World Series of Poker champion from 1970 through 1986 onto it, with the year that each won it. In the center of the quilt are pictures of Benny Binion and his sons, Jack and Teddy. It's hard to give a multimillionaire something when he already has everything he needs or wants. What do you give a man who had Benny's kind of money? The dolls and the quilt were the kinds of things he liked.

Evelyn also designs and sews the "designer label" overalls and suspenders that I've become famous for wearing. Folks can't help but notice how distinctive I look in them, and when they comment on them, I have a little joke ready. For instance, while Dana Smith and I were working on my book together, we were waiting for the elevator at Binion's when one of those gushy tourist ladies came up to me all starry-eyed and said, "Those overalls are so wonderful! Wherever did you get them?" Looking her square in the eye, I drawled my stock answer: "Well, ma'am, I used to pick cotton for Liberace, and when he died, this pair of overalls is the only thing he left me in his will." I might've been wearing the pair with the playing cards on them, but it also could've been the pair decorated with tapestry like you'd find in a good cathouse, or the pair with the lucky dice rolling over the bib. Speaking of dice, I have lots of good craps stories to tell, but I'll save 'em for next time.