Arnold “The Brain” Rothstein

November 6, 1928

The Fixer

Arnold Rothstein was known as “The Fixer”, as well as “The Brain”. It was he who had first realized the potential that Prohibition offered the underworld, passing that notion on to Johnny Torrio, in particular. It was Rothstein too who first understood that crime would be most effective if run along the lines of a corporation—in the end it’s always better to get things done through bribery than through violence.

Rothstein was a gambler and he’d made his first million through betting, casinos and loansharking. He wasn’t above stacking the deck, though, and if a bet wasn’t a sure thing, then he’d make it that way. To that end, Arnold had been known to tamper with horse races and had also been accused of fixing the World Series, a revelation that shocked the nation back in 1919.

Rothstein’s father had been a respectable businessman and philanthropist. As a result, his son was educated and well-read. He had connections that ran deep in business and political arenas and he “owned” more than a few politicians—it was how he got things done. Known as a fixer, he would arbitrate rivalries between the mobsters, and had soon expanded his operations to include speakeasies, labour infiltration, bootlegging and then narcotics. His organization included criminal heavy-hitter Lucky Luciano and he mentored Meyer Lansky, both of whom owed much of their take on organized crime to Rothstein’s progressive ideas, rather than to the primitive blood-and-guts methods of the earlier crime lords. But it was gambling that Rothstein loved best and he would put money down on anything from the ponies to political elections.

Daily News front page, 5th of November, 1928, reporting the fatal shooting of Arnold Rothstein at the Park Central Hotel, Manhattan.

A bad bet

It was fitting, then, that gambling would cost Rothstein his life. In late October of 1928 he had participated in a marathon poker game, lasting several days. But as the game progressed, something seemed slightly wrong; Rothstein, playing at first with his usual luck, had hit a dry spell and just couldn’t get back on track. His fortunes had lately taken a setback, and he had lost a considerable amount of cash on a bad racetrack bet while his narcotics operation had been bleeding money. During this game, the bad luck continued and Rothstein had raked up quite a debt—over $350,000, in fact. When the game ended, Rothstein refused to pay, claiming the game had been fixed.

On November 5, 1928, Rothstein was called to a meeting at the Park Central Hotel. Shortly afterwards he staggered from the room with a bullet wound to his abdomen. He lingered for a day, but avoided naming his killer. A fellow gambler, George McManus, was tried for the murder, supposedly committed because of Rothstein’s refusal to pay off his debt. He was later acquitted.

It has been suggested that Rothstein’s killer could have been Dutch Schultz, Meyer Lansky or Lucky Luciano, each of whom stood to gain by his downfall. The theory has some weight. After all, how could McManus hope to collect a debt from a dead man?