Rothstein: The Life, Times, and Murder of the Criminal Genius Who Fixed the 1919 World Series by David Pietrusza Read Free Book Online
Authors: David Pietrusza
not just billiardists, but gamblers, assorted lowlifes, and some very affordable ladies of the evening.
Too young to gain entrance to Smith's, Rothstein loitered outside trying to obtain the attention of someone inside to bet a dollar or two for him on a specific horse. Usually, all he got was a rude "Get the hell out of here, you're too young."
But he'd remain outside, and when the race was over-and Arnold's choice had run out-of-the-money-a man would emerge to say: "Say, Kid, you said two bucks on So-and-So, didn't you?" Arnold handed over his money eagerly. It took only a few such bets to learn a hard lesson. Gambling was for suckers. Not gambling-betting on sure things-was where the money was. Risk was OK-for the other guy.
"I knew my limitations when I was fifteen years old," he recalled, "and since that time I never played any game with a man I knew I couldn't beat."
Intellectually, he knew that. Emotionally, he didn't. Gamblers never really do. So he kept plunging, often disastrously. He left Boys High School after his second year. Some said he tired of the place. Some said his parents pulled him out.
At age sixteen or seventeen, Arnold went on the road as a salesman for his father's company, freeing himself from what little control Abraham and Esther Rothstein still exerted. In Chicago in 1899, in a high-stakes game of pinochle, he lost everything he had, including the expense money given him by his father. He bummed his way back to New York, and too ashamed to admit failure, did not return to the family business. Did not return home.
He took a room at the Broadway Central Hotel, down on lower Broadway, and found a job selling cigars. He couldn't have chosen a worse-or better-line of work. Selling smokes to cigar stores and to saloons and to pool halls, at each stop he met more gamblers and more men who fancied themselves gamblers.
At first, he continued to sometimes win, sometimes lose. But he was blessed not only with a head for numbers but also with a keen overall intelligence. He learned quickly and soon discovered what bets, what games, what houses, to avoid. He learned to minimize risks, often by less-than-honorable methods. Soon he began to win consistently.
Even then he carried upon his person as big a bankroll as he could, using it not just to generate interest from loans to needy but desperate gamblers, but to generate interesting side bets. Casually, he'd pull a fifty-dollar bill from his roll and challenge associates to a game of "poker." If, for example, the serial number read "D7 981376 7H," Rothstein had three sevens. If the other party had "R7 546484 8T," he possessed two pairs-a pair of fours and a pair of eights. Threeof-a-kind beats two pair, and Rothstein would win.
Eventually people noticed that A. R. won far more often than he lost. Some dared suggest he had previously inspected his bankroll, discarding inferior "hands," and committing the remaining "hands" to memory. That was, of course, just a theory.
"He couldn't stay on the level," recalled one early acquaintance:
Right away he began "past-posting." [placing a bet after post time, i.e., indulging even then in "sure-thing" gambling-the same scam he had learned the hard way at Sunny Smith's] When I called him on it he told me it wasn't wrong, just smart. He said now I was wise to it I ought to do some of it myself. It was easy money and no one had a right to pass up easy money.
He used to say, "Look out for Number One. If you don't, no one else will. If a man is dumb, someone is going to get the best of him, so why not you? If you don't, you're as dumb as he is." Rothstein was always looking for a little bit of the best of it. He used to say that just a half-point [one-half of one percent] could mean thousands over a length of time.
He knew percentages and knew how to take advantage of them. I learned a lot from him.
But there was more to A. R. than gambling. If he had been intrigued merely with the tossing of dice upon green
Too young to gain entrance to Smith's, Rothstein loitered outside trying to obtain the attention of someone inside to bet a dollar or two for him on a specific horse. Usually, all he got was a rude "Get the hell out of here, you're too young."
But he'd remain outside, and when the race was over-and Arnold's choice had run out-of-the-money-a man would emerge to say: "Say, Kid, you said two bucks on So-and-So, didn't you?" Arnold handed over his money eagerly. It took only a few such bets to learn a hard lesson. Gambling was for suckers. Not gambling-betting on sure things-was where the money was. Risk was OK-for the other guy.
"I knew my limitations when I was fifteen years old," he recalled, "and since that time I never played any game with a man I knew I couldn't beat."
Intellectually, he knew that. Emotionally, he didn't. Gamblers never really do. So he kept plunging, often disastrously. He left Boys High School after his second year. Some said he tired of the place. Some said his parents pulled him out.
At age sixteen or seventeen, Arnold went on the road as a salesman for his father's company, freeing himself from what little control Abraham and Esther Rothstein still exerted. In Chicago in 1899, in a high-stakes game of pinochle, he lost everything he had, including the expense money given him by his father. He bummed his way back to New York, and too ashamed to admit failure, did not return to the family business. Did not return home.
He took a room at the Broadway Central Hotel, down on lower Broadway, and found a job selling cigars. He couldn't have chosen a worse-or better-line of work. Selling smokes to cigar stores and to saloons and to pool halls, at each stop he met more gamblers and more men who fancied themselves gamblers.
At first, he continued to sometimes win, sometimes lose. But he was blessed not only with a head for numbers but also with a keen overall intelligence. He learned quickly and soon discovered what bets, what games, what houses, to avoid. He learned to minimize risks, often by less-than-honorable methods. Soon he began to win consistently.
Even then he carried upon his person as big a bankroll as he could, using it not just to generate interest from loans to needy but desperate gamblers, but to generate interesting side bets. Casually, he'd pull a fifty-dollar bill from his roll and challenge associates to a game of "poker." If, for example, the serial number read "D7 981376 7H," Rothstein had three sevens. If the other party had "R7 546484 8T," he possessed two pairs-a pair of fours and a pair of eights. Threeof-a-kind beats two pair, and Rothstein would win.
Eventually people noticed that A. R. won far more often than he lost. Some dared suggest he had previously inspected his bankroll, discarding inferior "hands," and committing the remaining "hands" to memory. That was, of course, just a theory.
"He couldn't stay on the level," recalled one early acquaintance:
Right away he began "past-posting." [placing a bet after post time, i.e., indulging even then in "sure-thing" gambling-the same scam he had learned the hard way at Sunny Smith's] When I called him on it he told me it wasn't wrong, just smart. He said now I was wise to it I ought to do some of it myself. It was easy money and no one had a right to pass up easy money.
He used to say, "Look out for Number One. If you don't, no one else will. If a man is dumb, someone is going to get the best of him, so why not you? If you don't, you're as dumb as he is." Rothstein was always looking for a little bit of the best of it. He used to say that just a half-point [one-half of one percent] could mean thousands over a length of time.
He knew percentages and knew how to take advantage of them. I learned a lot from him.
But there was more to A. R. than gambling. If he had been intrigued merely with the tossing of dice upon green
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