Meyer Lansky
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Meyer Lansky, Mogul of the Mob
Meyer Lansky grew up in a poor Jewish, immigrant household. Each week the family would scrimp and save to have the Sabbath meal, known as cholent. Each Friday night, young Lansky would take the meal to the bakery with a nickel to pay for the privilege of cooking the cholent. Each Friday night, Lansky would also walk past corner crap games. One week, Lansky, fascinated by the amount of money people were throwing around, bet his cholent nickel. Lansky was sure he would win and bring home much more money for his family. “I handed the money over to the banker, sure I was going to win – and to my dismay, I lost it!” Lansky recalled later.
Lansky promised himself he would never let his family down again and he would be a winner and beat them all. Lansky began to study the games and looked for the secret to win. Finally he figured it out, and began to win. He played the games for weeks all over the Lower East Side, amassing a small fortune that he kept under his mattress.
In a few years, Lansky became a “shtarke,” or a person who will commit violence for a price. It is with this job that Lanskys name first shows up on the criminal record books. At sixteen he was charged with felonious assault, but the charges were dismissed. Later he was arrested for attempting to be a pimp. He pleaded guilty to this and was fined two dollars.
Lansky was walking home one day when he was approached by a group of Sicilian boys, led by Salvatore Luciano, later known as Charlie “Lucky” Luciano. Luciano demanded Lansky pay tribute to his gang. Lansky refused and proved he was a dangerous force. It was then that Luciano and Lansky reached an understanding that never left the two.
Between 1914 and 1920, Lansky formed his gang. Five boys joined Meyer Lansky in an attempt to fight off the Irish and Italian gangs. Later Benny Siegel, AKA Bugsy, joined the group, and he and Lansky became closer than brothers. The gang known as the “Bugs and Meyer mobsters” and were “equal opportunity thugs”. No one was safe from the mobsters. They harassed all different immigrants, Jewish, Irish and Italian alike. The men opened a truck rental garage to front their operation, which also gave them access to a warehouse.
Arnold Rothstein or A.R. AKA the “Brain” was one of the most important gangsters in the years before Prohibition. He was known to always have a plan and always have a good idea of what could make him a lot of money. When Prohibition began in January 1920, Rothstein decided that if people werent able to buy liquor legally, they would pay for it at a much higher price illegally. Rothstein made a choice to bring Luciano and Lansky into his plan. The three men sold high quality booze, purchased in
Switzerland, and sold it for a hefty price. They could buy a crate of whiskey for around $25 and sell it for close to $1000.
When Prohibition ended, Lanskys profits slowly stopped coming in. He then went back to his first love gambling. In 1933, gambling was illegal in most states except Nevada. New York State had a large illegal casino in Saratoga. When Prohibition ended, Rothstein was running Saratogas spas and casinos. He brought Lansky and Luciano to Saratoga to do his dirty work. They paid off the local officials to keep quiet and ran the dining room in the casino. Lansky soon realized he would be able to make a large profit if he ran the casinos fairly. Most of the other gaming was crooked and unfair to the people playing.
Lansky brought in the best dealers and paid them well. Additionally, he created rules that helped the men get along, which thereby; stopping problems before they were started among his workers. His reputation helped him to spread his empire. Lansky soon was buying off officials in New Orleans, for a shot to be in control of the casinos there. After Louisiana, Lansky went to Hot Springs, Arkansas. This casino was incredibly luxurious and became a safe haven for mobsters while they waited out criminal charges.
Lansky soon grew bored, in Arkansas, however and began to open “carpet joints” or illegal casinos in South Florida. While Lansky had no
trouble buying off the politicians, he found that some citizens were approaching