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Famous American Gamblers
Wild Bill Hickok
James Butler Hickok was born in Troy Grove, Illinois, on May 27, 1837, and was shot dead in a saloon in Deadwood, Dakota Territory, on August 2, 1876. Famous for his lethal gun skills, as well as his professional gambling, he was a U.S. town marshal who unsuccessfully tried show business for a while after he got fired from his marshal job for shooting more than just bad guys.
When he was 18 years old he left his family's farm in Illinois and wandered westward. In Nebraska Territory he had a shoot-out with the McCanles gang, in which three of them were killed. He was a Union scout during the Civil War, and achieved fame as a U.S. marshal and gunfighter in the cow towns of Kansas from 1866 to 1871. He toured with Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show, astonishing eastern audiences with his marksmanship. On Aug. 2, 1876, Wild Bill was shot from behind and killed while playing poker in Saloon #10 in Deadwood, Dakota Territory. Legend has it that he died with a poker hand consisting of a pair of aces and a pair of eights -- known thereafter as the "dead man's hand." "The old duffer -- he broke me on the hand" were the last words Hickok spoke in reference to fellow gambler Captain Massie.
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