Arnold Rothstein ran crime like a corporation, then refused to pay a poker debt
Arnold Rothstein, nicknamed The Brain, was a New York gambler who saw what Prohibition could offer before almost anyone else. He is credited with turning organised crime into a business with bankers, fixers and imported Scotch. He also inspired Meyer Wolfshiem in The Great Gatsby, the man said to have fixed the 1919 World Series.
Born in Manhattan in 1882 to a respected businessman known as Abe the Just, Rothstein was good at mathematics and bored by everything else at school. He gambled from childhood despite his father's disapproval, and later said the thrill was the point: when he played, nothing else mattered. By 28 he ran a casino in the Tenderloin district, and a network of paid informants and wealthy backers made him a millionaire by 30.
Whether he fixed the 1919 World Series has never been settled. Chicago White Sox players allegedly took money to lose to the Cincinnati Reds, and Rothstein testified that the gambler Abe Attell had merely used his name. He was never indicted. One biographer thinks he played both sides of competing fixes; another historian concluded Attell acted without his approval, which did not stop Rothstein betting on inside knowledge. The grand jury records and signed confessions vanished, yet the new commissioner, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, banned all eight accused players for life. By one account Rothstein won about 350,000 dollars.
Prohibition made him rich on a larger scale. He brought in Scotch whisky on his own transatlantic freighters, bought into speakeasies and moved into narcotics; many historians call him the first successful modern drug dealer. He mentored Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky and Frank Costello, settled gang disputes for a fee and conducted business on the pavement outside Lindy's on Broadway. By 1925 he was among the most powerful criminals in America.
The end came over cards. After a three-day poker game in October 1928 he owed 320,000 dollars, insisted the game was rigged and would not pay. On November 4 he was shot at the Park Central Hotel and died two days later, telling police only to stick to their trade. The gambler George McManus was tried and acquitted. His empire was carved up, and the loss of its fixer helped bring down Tammany Hall.
Source: Arnold Rothstein
