How Rick Harrison Heckled A Pawn License From $1M Down To $50

If Rick Harrison knows one thing, it's how to get the best deal out of someone. Typically, when he does this at work during "Pawn Stars," it's through persistent negotiating and never taking no for an answer. Other times, it's going above and beyond to get something that he wants. When Rick sees something he has to have, he usually gets it. That's exactly what happened when he and his parents, including The Old Man, moved to Las Vegas and needed to get a pawn license to start their family business we all know and love today.

Pawn licenses usually run for around $1 million, and you need to wait for someone else to sell theirs to you, Rick said on Fox Nation's "Nuff Said." Despite the lack of availability, Rick simply would not pay that much for a pawn license. In classic Rick fashion, he does everything he can to get the lowest price.

Here's how Rick Harrison heckled a pawn license from a cool million all the way down to $50.

It all started in 1981, when the Harrisons moved from San Diego to Las Vegas after their real estate business collapsed. Their new business venture, pawning, required a license to operate. During that time, only a handful of licenses were available, and they were expensive. Harrison tried to go to the city to apply for a license, but they immediately turned him down. In the process, however, they accidentally showed him the city code, which revealed a loophole, according to Rick.

The loophole explains that in 1955, the city passed an ordinance that would issue one more pawn license when the city population got to a quarter of a million. At the time, the population was only 25,000, and city officials never thought the population would increase that dramatically. Being the persistent businessman he is, Rick started to call the city statisticians to figure out what Las Vegas's population was.

"I start calling the city statistician once a week, once every two weeks. And [in] April of '88, he goes, 'Yeah, we think it's a quarter of a million.'"

Rick returned to the city and asked for his license, where the city turned him down again. As a result, Rick got a lawyer and went in front of a judge to present his case. Since Rick was the first one, the judge allowed Rick to purchase the one extra pawn license Las Vegas had created for only $50. That's how you negotiate.