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(con. 1900-29) Big Bankroll 75: The man at the top was always a politician. And working directly with him there was always a high police officer. All graft was strained through him. He was the ‘bagman’ .at bagman, n.
(con. 1900-29) Big Bankroll 75: The man at the top was always a politician. And working directly with him there was always a high police officer. All graft was strained through him. He was the ‘bagman’ . (con. 1900-29) Big Bankroll 184: [A] ‘boiler room’ [...] was an inner office, equipped with banks of telephones, at which salesmen sat. All day, six days a week, these salesmen called potential suckers.at boiler-room (n.) under boiler, n.1
(con. 1900-29) Big Bankroll 165: A bucket-shop was an ostensibly legal brokerage firm. Some of these firms operated within the law. Others did not. The latter cheated their customers, stole from them, misused their customers’ money.at bucket shop, n.
(con. 1900-29) Big Bankroll 302: There were always ‘contracts,’ that euphemism for ‘fix’ or ‘favor’ [...] A [politician’s] call to a judge to arrange for bail. A call to a lawyer, informing him of a client who needed his services.at contract, n.
(con. 1900-29) Big Bankroll 55: Rothstein was coppering part of the bet. He owned a piece of the business and the money the spectators would spend would yield him a profit.at copper, v.1
(con. 1900-29) Big Bankroll 192: A dynamiter was the supervisor of a boiler room, the man who was called on to close the deals.at dynamiter, n.
(con. 1900-29) Big Bankroll 132: It looked as though the 1921 running of the [Travers Stakes] was a ‘lock’—a sure thing—for Harry Payne Whitney’s great mare Prudery.at lock, n.1
(con. 1900-29) Big Bankroll 320: He operated a casual ‘floating’ game and this was one such. It is part of the code of gambling that, in a game such as this, the operator is technically the ‘host’ .at operator, n.
(con. 1900-29) Big Bankroll 113: What made Rosoff so great a risk [...] was that he could ‘tap out’ Rothstein. With the limit off, he could use his bankroll, so much bigger than Rothstein’s, and take loss after loss and still come back for more.at tap out, v.
(con. 1900-29) Big Bankroll 239: [T]he Diamond gang [...] rode in the trucks, guns ready [...] Just as in the old days of the West, when the stagecoaches traveled through hostile or dangerous territory, they ‘rode shotgun’ .at ride shotgun (v.) under ride, v.
(con. 1900-29) Big Bankroll 321: Raymond said bitterly, ‘Not even a scratch.’ He meant he did not even have Rothstein’s scrawled initials on a piece of paper.at scratch, n.3
(con. 1900-29) Big Bankroll 322: Hines was McManus’ ‘shammus,’ his protector, his link with Tammany Hall.at shamus, n.
(con. 1900-29) Big Bankroll 78: Becker became [Rosenthal’s] partner in the game at the Hesper Club. The shotgun alliance was a most unhappy one.at shotgun wedding, n.
(con. 1900-29) Big Bankroll 27: [‘Big Tim’] Sullivan was a leader. He had come up the ladder, from shoulder bumper to boss, under the aegis of Richard Croker and Tom Foley.at shoulder-hitter (n.) under shoulder, n.
(con. 1900-29) Big Bankroll 183: In their early days the bucket shops were straight gambling houses. Their commission was their ‘vigorish’.at vigorish, n.
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