Child Gambling in the Old West

It depends. You've got three separate issues to deal with here.

First is you say she's a fill-in for her father. I'm not sure exactly what you mean here, but if this was a family obligation or something that her father was honor bound to do, then it would be reasonable. But without more information, I'm not sure of where this goes.

Second is women gambling. We view the West as a simple society now and don't understand the complexities of it. There were saloons no one in their right mind would enter, and then there were classy joints. There were also saloons connected to bordellos, where the saloon was a meeting area. A lot of the men just wanted to see and hear women. But genteel card games would be played there.

High stakes poker would be played more at places like the cattlemen's club. Some of these were men only, while others allowed women members (depended upon who owned the ranches). Riverboats tended to allow women into the gambling rooms. And sometimes saloons would separate out the gambling from the heavy drinking. Places with show girls would be run cleaner than male only places. You want a place that doesn't allow the riff-raff in. You want a place where guns would not be openly worn.

Third is her age. Many twelve-year-olds did a man's work and expected to be treated as a man. If she does something like bull whacking (teamster), she would be expected to work like a man and be treated like a man.

Properly presented, yes, it could have happened.

Best of luck,

Jim Clark-Dawe

Don't even think twice about it. She would have been allowed to drink and gamble in almost any place between St. Joe and Sacramento until sometime in the 20th century. There were no state law restrictions on drinking age in public establishments until the Prohibition movement became significant in the 1890's. There were restrictions on women in saloons in some states, but in most places the biggest problem would have been that essentially all saloons in the Old West were cathouses and some drunk might take her for one of the professionals.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_saloon
http://www.legendsofamerica.com/we-saloons.html

Little late to the party, but I'm going to go ahead and throw in my two bits anyway. When I read the premise, my first thought was of the old movie Big Hand For a Little Lady. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it. It's a hoot! The plot is very similar to what you're suggesting, although it has a real chuckler of a twist at the end: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060165/

To answer the question: It all depends on WHO she is, or more precisely, who her father is. "Decent" women were not allowed in saloons. It was more than just frowned on. It was often forbidden. When you consider that the saloon was where married or otherwise attached men came to "socialize" with dancing girls, working girls, bar-girls, etc., you can understand why no wives and daughters were allowed! Even the single gents weren't particularly fond of the idea that their Saturday night antics might be witnessed by Mrs. So-and-so, and relayed, via the local sewing circle, through the whole territory. Kind of like why parents aren't welcome at frat parties!

So if she's from a respectable family, and not facing some dire hardship, it's highly unlikely she would be in one. However, if her father is a low-brow type, and not bucking for any parenting awards, then it's entirely plausible. If you write in some protests from the saloon crowd, and play up the fact that it wasn't an everyday occurrence, you should be fine.

As far as gambling goes, just make sure you're careful with your details. The poker we play today is VERY different from what was played on the frontier. The rules are different. For example, straights and flushes were a very late import from Europe. Also, watch how you show the betting. Hollywood's concept of how the game is (and was) played is laughable.

I used to play cards for a living, in a town once frequented by all the old west's sporting crowd, so if you ever need info, shoot me a message, and I'd be glad to help.