FATHER OF THE JEWISH MAFIA - THE STORY OF ARNOLD ROTHSTEIN

Arnold Rothstein is a gangster about whom little is known to the general public. His name usually comes up when stories are told about mobsters like Meyer Lansky or Lucky Luciano, citing Rothstein as their mentor and investor. But this is only the first layer of the Jewish businessman’s multifaceted personality. Beginning to peel back layer after layer, like an onion, we first discover that Rothstein was involved in the rise of at least a dozen of the leading gangsters of Prohibition. Then we discover that he was one of the biggest gamblers in the United States and managed to rig the outcome of America’s premier baseball tournament. But that’s not all, digging deeper we find evidence that Rothstein had serious political connections and was an intermediary between the authorities and the criminal community. Today we are going to talk about a gangster who managed to turn everything he touched into money. He was a gambler, a casino owner, a bootlegger, a drug dealer, a loan shark, and each activity inevitably took his bankroll to a new level. And the more money he made, the more he invested, revealing to the world new criminal figures or new illegal ways of making money. If you want to hear how one man managed to have his hand in everything that would feed the underworld for the entire 20th century, then meet Arnold Rothstein, On the Other Side of the Law. Original source: “Rothstein: The Life, Times, and Murder of the Criminal Genius Who Fixed the 1919 World Series“- David Pietrusza