He established a monopoly of "Policy" by telling the bankers that they would either have to submit to his "protection" or take their chance at the hands of his killers, Then he set himself to figure out a way of making the game still more profitable to the promoters, There was just one chance—not a very big one, but a chance—that the "bankers" might lose on the day's play. If all the gamblers, for instance, happened to bet one day on the number 666, and it came up, the bankers would be inconveniently out of pocket. On the other hand, if the bankers could manipulate the winning number, they could take care that it didn't win too much.
Even the powerful German could not fake the reports of the United States Treasury. So he fell back or. a figure which could be controlled.
The winning numbers were taken from figures appearing daily on the cotalizators at certain race-tracks. The race-track employees were heavily "iced"—that is, bribed—end the numbers were selected so that the winning cipher was commonly that which was least heavily backed.
By this improvement in operating technique, the annual turnover from the policy game was raised to something like £20,000,000 a year. Even with the heavy expenses there was a clear profit of £2,000,000 a year to be split between "Dutch Schultz" and his tributary "policy kings."
That was the "policy" racket—a good game while it lasted.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.