Alice supported herself by winning money in poker games and odd jobs like working as a dealer.  One was in a saloon owned by the man who killed Jesse James, Bob Ford. She was well sought after, as she was a true lady in the gambling halls, something that wasn't seen very often.  It was around this time that she was given the name “Poker Alice.”

She started traveling from one mining camp to another and worked all over Colorado. She also started cigar smoking. At this time, Alice was a young and attractive woman who was becoming very well known, and she drew in crowds whenever she played or dealt.  The gambling hall and saloon owners loved her for that.

Alice refused to play any poker on Sunday because of her religious beliefs, but that didn't stop her from making a lot of money playing poker. Sometimes she made as much as $6,000 in one night. As her reputation grew, she was always able to find men who were looking to challenge her skills at the table.

Alice also loved dressing up as women did at the time, and often after winning a large sum of money would travel to New York to go on shopping sprees and stock up on some fashionable gowns to wear at the table. Alice was good at figuring odds and distracting male players with her looks. Even well into her 50's Alice was a very attractive woman who always wore the finest clothes.

Alice continued traveling around on her poker-playing tour throughout the old west and eventually ended up in Deadwood, South Dakota. There she started playing poker with another dealer and player, Warren Tubbs. On one occasion when a drunken miner threatened Tubbs with a knife, Alice pulled out her .38, which she always carried as a professional player at that time, and put a bullet right into the miner's arm.

Tubbs often lost money to Alice, and he also lost his heart. The two eventually married and had seven children: four sons and three daughters.

Alice and Warren homesteaded a ranch near Sturgis, and Alice retired from gambling halls to help with the ranch and raise her children. Tubbs was diagnosed with tuberculosis, and Alice stayed by his side and tried to nurse him back to health. Tubbs died of pneumonia in the winter of 1910.

Alice had to pay for his funeral by pawning her wedding ring and went back to playing poker to earn the money to look after her family and get her ring back. Reportedly, she hit the tables right after the funeral.

Alice hired a man named George Huckert to take care of the ranch and started playing again in Sturgis. George was in love with Alice and kept proposing to her; and finally, when his back wages totalled over a thousand dollars she remarked "It would be cheaper to marry him than pay him." Alice's marriage to her third husband was short and Huckert died in 1913.

Alice would later say that the time she spent on the ranch was the happiest times of her life and she never missed the saloons and gambling halls while she was there.

Around 1910, Alice bought an old house near Fort Meade and opened a saloon called "Poker’s Palace.” Her establishment not only offered gambling and liquor, but also prostitution. In 1913, a group of drunk soldiers began to cause havoc in her saloon, and started to destroy the furniture. Alice pulled out her .38 and shot and killed one of them. Her and her girls were arrested.

Alice spent her time smoking cigars and reading the bible while waiting her trial from jail. She was acquitted on the grounds of self defense, but her saloon was shut down.

Alice was now getting older and retired her fashionable gowns for more comfortable ones.  She  dressed herself in men's shirts and a long skirt. In the image above she is wearing an old hat. She still smoked cigars and she still played poker. Occasionally she was featured in events such as the Diamond Jubilee, in Omaha, Nebraska, as she was a living frontier character. She was heard to say "At my age I suppose I should be knitting. But I would rather play poker with five or six "experts" than eat."

Alice was in her sixties and she was supporting herself by playing poker and running a house of “ill repute” in Sturgis. She was often arrested for drunkenness and keeping a brothel. The madam would always pay her fines and go back to operating her business.  Finally, she was arrested for repeated convictions and sentenced to prison. Alice was 75 years old and was given a pardon by the governor because of her advancing age.

Alice passed away at the age of 79 in Rapid City after a gall bladder operation in 1930. She is buried at St. Aloysius Cemetery in Sturgis, SD. Her house was vacant for a long time and scheduled to be demolished when a Sturgis businessman bought it and had it moved to Junction Avenue where it now serves as a Bed & Breakfast.

Alice claimed to have won over a quarter of million dollars playing poker.  In today's dollars, that amount would be well over three million. One of her more famous quotes is:

“Praise the Lord and place your bets. I'll take your money with no regrets."