Montana Icon’s Art Shows Up in Unexpected Place
Recently, while spending some time in a local casino, I noticed a new game that immediately caught my attention. It had a Montana connection I wasn’t expecting—artwork from Charles M. Russell featured right there on the machine.
A Surprising Find Inside a Montana Casino
It stopped me for a second. It was called Charlie Russell Keno.
Who Was Charles M. Russell?
A friend and I got to talking about it, and the question came up: what would Russell think about this? He's one of Montana’s most respected artists—someone whose work helps define the history and spirit of the West—now appearing on a modern gaming machine.
We both had more questions than answers.
A Legacy Deeply Rooted in Montana
Russell’s legacy runs deep here. You see it at the C.M. Russell Museum and C.M. Russell High School in Great Falls. I actually went to Russell Elementary in Missoula, so it’s always felt a little more personal.
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On one hand, you have to wonder if he’d be fascinated. The idea of his artwork brought to life with lights, motion, and gaming technology might’ve been hard to imagine in his time. It’s possible he would’ve been curious about how far things have come.
But on the other hand, his work wasn’t created for something like this. He was capturing a way of life, telling stories of the Old West as he experienced it. Turning that into part of a casino game feels like a pretty big shift from the original intent.
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Maybe that’s why it stood out so much.
We’ll never really know what he’d think, of course. But seeing that Montana connection in a place like a casino definitely got the conversation going—and sometimes that’s the most interesting part.
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Gallery Credit: Chris Wolfe
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Gallery Credit: Chris Wolfe