Word: racket
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Dates: during 1950-1950
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...numbers pools--otherwise known as the policy racket and nigger pool--probably involve more people in the Square than any other form of bookmaking. Almost every Boston paper publishes the payoff numbers...
...psychologist, you understand why bettors are such suckers. It takes little mathematics to see that they are getting thoroughly milked by the odds in the numbers racket. One three-figure number, which has a one out of 999 chance of appearing, pays off only 600 to one. And as if a sure 40 percent weren't enough for the pool operators, they have instituted "half-numbers:" numbers which are bet more frequently than others, and on which for various reasons a significantly higher number of bets are placed than simple odds would predict. These numbers--there are close...
...investigators. They had previously ascertained that underworld-controlled "wire services," once devoted to horse racing, are now used to communicate baseball odds to bookmaking establishments throughout the country. The investigators also referred to Ralph Capone, reputed present head of the Capone syndicate, as "relentlessly muscling in on the baseball racket from coast-to-coast." Commenting on the Boston raid, the New York investigators declared it knocked off a $4,000,000 branch office of a syndicate...
Racing bookmakers get between 40 and 50 percent of all money bet with them, regardless of how much they pay out in winnings. The numbers racket works on a more complex scheme...
Jimmy Duncan, the story went, trained his mighty voice by exercising it against the roar of motors warming until the fighter pilots complained that with such a racket filling the air, they couldn't tell whether their engines were purring properly...