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new crime reporter leo catcher said that arnold rothstein transformed organized crime from
a thuggish activity practiced by hoodlums into a big business run like a corporation
with himself at the top he gathered the loose single strands of crime and wove them into a
tapestry he took the various elements that were needed to change crime from
petty larceny into big business and fused them the end result was a machine that runs smoothly today
a bit overdramatic perhaps but it does well to illustrate the impact that arnold rothstein
had on crime in america all of the notorious mobsters that you've heard of who have already
been featured here on biographics lucky luciano melansky frank costello they all learned their
business from the man known as the brain mr big and the big bankroll arnold rothstein
arnold rothstein was born on january the 17th 1882 in new york city he was the second son of abraham
and esther rothstein he was part of a wealthy and influential ashkenazi jewish family and he grew
up in luxury in a swanky home in manhattan abraham rothstein also known as abe the just in his local
community was a man who cherished philanthropy piety and honesty and also served as chairman on
the board of the best israel hospital his oldest son harry studied to become a rabbi arnold on the
other hand didn't really follow in their footsteps in fact the only thing he seemed to inherit from
his father was his business acumen from a young age arnold resented his older brother harry since
he felt that he received most of the care and attention from their parents according to an
interview with a psychologist the most emotional moment in rostein's childhood occurred when he was
six years old and his father found him hiding and sobbing uncontrollably in a closet screaming that
everybody hated him and loved harry his jealousy only grew as the years passed especially when
harry announced that he wanted to enter rabbinical school to the great delight of his father gambling
was another driving wedge between young arnold and his father as you might imagine abe rothstein
disapproved of gambling whereas arnold never found a pair of dice that he didn't like as soon as he
won his first part arnold knew that it didn't get any better than that nothing and nobody could
persuade him to stop school didn't mean much for arnold either the only subject where he showed any
interest was arithmetic he was great with numbers but that only was because he saw that they could
be used to make him become a better gambler he got held back a few times and by the time he turned 16
he dropped out of school completely rothstein then took a few jobs as a traveling salesman he was
good at it and enjoyed the work but it simply didn't make enough cash to keep his interest
no if rothstein was going to maintain the comfortable lifestyle that he grew accustomed to
he would need to find more lucrative business opportunities a strange moment in his life
occurred when rothstein was around 18 years old still a traveling salesman at that point he was in
eerie pennsylvania when he received a message from home his older brother harry the sibling that he
had resented his whole life had died of pneumonia this was a turning point in rothstein's life
for a while harry's death persuaded him to try one last time to mend the relationship that he
had with his father he moved back home stayed away from his usual gambling haunts and even went to
synagogue with abe it was a nice gesture but it didn't last long eventually he had another row
with his father and he left the family home again this time determined to strike out on his own from
that moment on arnold rothstein fully embarked on his life of crime and he never looked back
for the next few years of rothstein's life the pool halls bookies and gambling denzel
new york became his new home away from home uh hammerstein's victoria theater and the broadway
central hotel were favorite hangouts of his and rothstein already started to acquaint himself with
some of the locals of dubious reputation who frequented such dens of iniquity soon enough
he had saved up enough money to become a loan shark nothing major just fifty dollars here and
a hundred dollars there but rostein was good at making himself appear like a bigger deal than
he actually was he developed a habit of always carrying around a lot of dollar bills thick enough
to choke a pelican he would flash it every time he got the opportunity to make it seem like that was
just some walking around money to him when in fact it was most of the cash that he had in the world
rostein also showed himself eager to spend it more than happy to fund other people's gambling habits
as long as they paid it back with 25 interest and those who refused to pay well let's just say
that they would receive a nasty visit from some of arnold's pals rothstein himself didn't like to get
his hands dirty but he had associates who had no such qualms sooner or later everybody paid up it
was around this time that rothstein's profile grew large enough that he started hanging out with a
better class of criminals the crooked politicians specifically timothy big tim sullivan one of the
tammany hall bigwigs who controlled the democratic vote in several areas of manhattan 20 years older
than rothstein sullivan was already a force to be reckoned with by the time the young gambler
started breaking into the new york underworld a mentorship relationship began evolving between the
two just like the one that rothstein would later develop with future mobsters such as lucky luciano
and frank costello sullivan taught rothstein the importance of building a network of relations
everyone from janitors to judges had some kind of value if you used them right
people soon learned that if they had a tip for any kind of money-making opportunity be it
legal or illegal arnold rothstein was the one willing to pay top dollar for it with such insider
information he moved up from small-time pool hall games to big poker tournaments horse races
prize fights any crooked game in new york you could bet on arnold rothstein would be there
he once quipped that he would bet on anything except the weather since it was the only thing
he couldn't control in 1907 rothstein met and fell in love with a 19 year old showgirl named carolyn
greene he intended to marry her and even brought her to meet his parents although this had the
predictable outcome of an argument between father and son the devout abraham blew a fuse when he
found out that his son's half-jewish bride-to-be had been raised catholic and had no intention
of converting of course his father's approval was not high on arnold rothstein's list of priorities
especially since he wasn't exactly genesis prize material either the couple stayed together despite
a rothsted's protestations and two years later they got married in saratoga springs as rostein's
fortune grow it made sense for him to open his own gambling house which he did with the help
from sullivan who offered him protection on his new joint sullivan's assistance did come with a
bothersome catch though as rothstein had to take on a former building inspector named william cher
as a partner cher was an anti-semite who distrusted rothstein so unsurprisingly the
two butted heads quite often until one night when rothstein took the drunken share into signing away
his side of the partnership for forty thousand dollars once that little annoyance was dealt with
rostein got back to what mattered most to him making money his casino was located inside two
brownstones on west 46th street near the theater district and as you entered it became evident that
it wasn't the kind of joint where you would drop a few nickels and dimes no rothstein's gambling
house was the type of place where the showgirls were friendly and the liquor was plentiful
and it was obviously intended to attract big time spenders with deep pockets and poor judgment
by the time he turned 30 in 1912 arnold rothstein had become a millionaire he never stopped gambling
of course but he also expanded his portfolio by dipping his fingers in a lot of profitable pies
loan sharking smuggling bail bonding anything that would make money rothstein didn't have
a crew his speciality was putting the right people in contact with each other or working
on the business end of a racket his role was that of a fixer or a go-between but of course
he always collected his cut it was also around this time that he began acting as a mentor to
some of the up-and-coming mobsters who worked for him guys like mayor lansky jack leggs diamond and
lucky luciano all studied under the tree of rothstein and later expressed their admiration
for his talents lansky said that rothstein had the most remarkable brain when it came to business and
that he would have become rich and successful even if it stayed legitimate meanwhile lucky revealed
that his relationship with ross dean was more than strictly business luciano said he taught
me how to dress how to use knives and forks and things like that at the dinner table about
holding a door open for a girl if arnold had lived a little longer he could have made me pretty
elegant one of the things that made rothstein so valuable as a partner was his connection
to the new york political machine according to crime writer leah catcher everyone turned
to arnold lawyers fixers people in trouble sought him out he was a pipeline to tammany
hall if you wanted a favor from the hall arnold rothstein could expedite it assure it for you
and so you paid him 1913 was a pivotal year for rothstein because two of new
york's most influential and most corrupt political players were taken out of the game
one was his former mentor big tim sullivan or the king of the bowery as he liked to be called who
died in september 1913 when his body was almost sliced into by a speeding train the circumstances
under which he ended up on the train tracks are still up for debate was it murder suicide
or accident the other bigwig who bit the dust was police captain charles becker who was arrested for
planning and ordering the 1912 murder of bookie herman rosenthal becker was not only convicted but
also executed for the crime becoming one of the few crooked cops to face capital punishment this
could have been a big problem for rothstein as he lost two of his biggest connections
in the same year but fortunately for him the more things changed the more they stayed the same old
acquaintances were simply replaced by new ones and his role remained mostly the same if anything
his criminal empire continued to grow as rothstein opened two new casinos in long island and saratoga
and also started getting involved in the drug trade his setup in saratoga in particular was
said to be among the swankiest ones in the country known as the brook it combined a
casino with a restaurant a nightclub and a cabaret show and it attracted some of the biggest gamblers
in america mobsters like bugsy siegel and mayor lansky would emulate his pension for luxury with
their own establishments in the future but it was rothstein who first thought to invest in deluxe
businesses in order to attract a higher class of clientele one of the few times that rothstein got
into trouble with the law happened in 1919 when police conducted a raid on a gambling den when
the detectives started pounding the door they were met with gunshots there were only a few
minor injuries and the entire party was arrested including rothstein and his bodyguard even though
nodey identified the shooter rothstein was caught trying to get rid of a revolver so he was the one
indicted on assault charges nothing ever came of it though a judge dismissed the charges on
the basis of a faulty raid because the officers didn't identify themselves as police and a faulty
indictment because no evidence was submitted to directly implicate rothstein as the shooter
whether the ruling was legitimate or rothstein simply bribed his way out the end result was the
same arnold was a free man and he could get back to business and his plans grew even more ambitious
with the world of crime being inherently secretive even to its own members it is
unsurprising that it has given rise to numerous myths rumors and legends jimmy hoffer being
buried under giant stadium is a popular example but perhaps none is more pervasive than arnold
rothstein fixing the 1919 baseball world series just to be clear we're not saying that he did
or did not do it neither side has ever been proven conclusively we're simply presenting
the story as it has been told for over a hundred years it was october 1919 and the american league
champion chicago white sox were due to meet the national league champion cincinnati reds in a best
of nine series to determine the winners of the world series ultimately the reds t153 but rumors
started flying around that the games had not been on the up and up was it possible that some of
the chicago players intentionally threw the game and was it possible that they were paid to do so
by arnold rothstein who made a killing by betting against the favorites let's examine the story bit
by bit first off why would the chicago players throw the series well athletes back then had only
a teeny tiny fraction of the wealth and power that they have today the owner of the chicago white
sox charles kamiski was known as a particularly parsimonious miser who paid his players peanuts
one of his star athletes schuler's joe jackson who was still ranked as one of the greatest
hitters in the history of the game only made six thousand dollars a year which is around 85 000
today meanwhile many other players made just three thousand dollars which today would be below the
national salary average in other words it was a far far cry from the multiple hundred million
dollar contracts of today then there was also the dreaded reserve clause back then there was no free
agency so players couldn't move on to greener pastures when their contracts expired their team
still retained the rights to them essentially in perpetuity and they could only move to another
team if they received an unconditional release from their previous team all of this was done to
explicitly keep the players salaries low since freedom of movement would have increased demand
and therefore granted players leverage to ask for higher wages honestly the way things were
it's kind of surprising that more baseball players didn't just say screw it and throw the game for
one big payday but it did happen on this occasion eight white sox players were implicated in the
scandal including the aforementioned shoeless joe jackson they were indicted on conspiracy to
defraud charges and brought before a grand jury ultimately the black socks as they were dubbed by
the media were all found not guilty but they were still banned for life from professional baseball
so where does arnold rothstein come in allegedly he was the shadowy figure behind the scenes who
bankrolled the entire operation two gamblers came to him with the idea both of them having
connections to the white sox one was joseph sport sullivan and the other was william sleepy bill
burns rothstein went with sullivan since he had a better reputation and paid him between 80 000 to
100 000 to arrange the whole thing but as we know there is no honor among thieves and it was alleged
during the trial that sullivan only turned over fifteen thousand dollars to the players and kept
the rest somewhere definitely got screwed over in this deal but it certainly wasn't arnold rothstone
rumors say that he placed several bets on the cincinnati reds totaling almost 270 thousand
dollars and that he walked away with a princely sum out of the whole ordeal however he was called
to testify before the grand jury in october 1920 but he couldn't be tied to anything so rothstein
was cleared of any involvement and strangely enough some historians agree with this assessment
and think that rothstein was truthful when he said that he had no part in the fix he was certainly
aware of it you couldn't plan a scam this big back then without word reaching arnold rothstein he
also knew that other people used his name while organizing the whole thing to make it seem like
a big time deal but he chose to keep his mouth shut and stay away from the whole matter quietly
making his own bets it was just the way rothstein liked it all of the wins with none of the risks
the thing is that as notorious as the black sox betting scandal was it wasn't even close
to rothstein's biggest payday just in 1921 alone he made two bets that earned him five hundred
thousand dollars in eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars respectively horse racing was
his sport of choice and he even owned a few horses including two champion racers named sidereel and
sporting blood who both won him those two huge bets and the truth is that these kind of massive
gambling wins weren't even rothstein's main moneymaker anymore because in 1920 something
new came along that turned arnold rothstein into one of the richest gangsters in the country
prohibition january the 17th 1920 was described as the greatest day for organized crime in america
because that is when prohibition came into effect and rothstein was the kind of guy who immediately
spotted the huge profits to be made just waiting for the right man with the right vision to come
along and he was that man so he started repairing even before the volstead act as it was also
known came into effect therefore when prohibition arrived rothstein was ready he had the connections
he had the delivery network and he had that sweet sweet nectar of the gods to keep america tipsy and
happy because he was one of the first criminals to get in on the action arnold rothstein became
one of the biggest bootleggers of the early 1920s as the years passed he got outmatched by guys like
al capone and george remus but by then rothstein had already reaped his riches not to mention that
he expanded into the heroin and cocaine trade so he was still doing all right for himself the 1920s
represented the peak of arnold rosstein's power influence and wealth but they ended with a sudden
and permanent drop if you know what we mean on november 4th 1928 rothstein was shot while
attending a meeting inside the park central hotel he was found by the service entrance trying to
hail a cab to go to a doctor he was taken to the hospital where doctors pulled a 38-caliber bullet
out of rothstein's abdomen which appears to an artery and caused a lot of bleeding initially it
was thought that he might survive but the kingpin died of his injuries two days later on november
6th aged 46 during his day in hospital he regained consciousness but stuck to the precious code of
silence until his last breath refusing to tell the cops anything other than his age and address
now again we'll dip into the bag of mafia law for the reason for rothstein's murder since
nobody was ever convicted of the crime the whole thing supposedly happened over an unpaid gambling
debt weeks earlier rothstein attended a card game hosted by a guy named george mcmanus this was
where arnold was matched up against two other big time gamblers called alvin titanic thompson and
nate raymond rothstein was uncharacteristically unlucky that day and he left the table owing over
three hundred thousand dollars everyone expected him to make good on the payment but days turned
to weeks and still no word from arnold as it turned out he became convinced that the game
had been fixed and had no intention of paying this put mcmanus in a delicate position since he hosted
the game and therefore vouched for everyone at the table he demanded a private meeting with rostein
at the park central hotel where we presume a lot of accusations and insults started flying around
and arnold rothstein left the room with a hole in his gut as we said nobody was convicted so
his murder remains officially unsolved and the funny thing is that the money would have meant
nothing to rothstein just days after his death bet of his came up and it would have earned him over
half a million dollars his debt was just a tiny drop in the bucket to him but it was the idea
that he had been conned that he couldn't stand he died letting the world know that arnold rothstein
was nobody's sucker so i really hope you enjoyed today's video if you'd like to check out another
video that we've done about gangsters one mentioned in today's video please do check
out our bugsy seagull video which i'll link to on the screen now and thank you for watching
thanks again to war thunder for sponsoring today's video remember to follow the link
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