I'm going to generalize here. If you go into a club that has strippers or you use the services of a bookie for sports betting on a football, basketball, or in some cases a hometown sporting event - you are doing business with the mob. Maybe not Don Corleone of Godfather fame, but some aspect of organized crime either directly or indirectly.
A few years ago in Maryville, Tennessee, an up and coming entrepreneur and his brother thought they would go into the arcade machine business. You know - pinball machines and other machines that gave the possibility of betting on the outcome of a session. A building was constructed and the machines were moved in. A short time later in the early hours of the morning - BOOM! - the building was blown up - and never reconstructed. Somebody had sent a warning. You don't buy pinball machines or other gaming machines unless you go through the right channels!
Turf wars are not uncommon in the murky world of organized crime. Sometimes these wars become violent. People are found dead.
Next week at my website ThomsonTalks I will tell a story of two bookies too many in a small Southern town. The story is fiction of course but it follows a pattern that has occurred in many small cities across the U.S. Be watching for it.
Missouri,Montana,Nebraska,Nevada
About Me
- Investigative scribbler
- Mike is retired from the U.S. Army and is the publications editor for the popular web journal, The Partial Observer - www.partialobserver.com. He is also the author of a murder novel entitled, "The Publisher." In politics Mike is a former Republican county chair and state committeeman. Now he is Independent.
2 comments:
I have noticed since being here that gambling is almost a taboo subject if a propreitor of a business chooses to do it. I find it almost amusing if it wasn't so serious. Every pub in Australia gives you the option to gamble whether it be poker machines or horse racing. If you think about it. It kind of takes the Mob eleement out of it.
Prohibition doesn't work in most cases. Why do we maintain this steady course of self abuse?
You're absolutely right, Nick. I can't really see the difference between buying 100 dollars worth of lottery tickets - which is legal in many states, and pulling the lever on a one-armed bandit. Unfortunately however, the mob doesn't care where you play the game, just as long as they own the machine. I totally don't understand the federal laws on sports betting. Any time you use a telephone to place a bet with a bookie, you've violated a federal wire statute - and could concievably go to prison.
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