Betting on the Big Apple

Major gambling interests are jockeying to slice up the take when New York City issues three casino licenses 

- MICHAEL KAPLAN

Gambling opportunities in New York City have never been sparse. In 1928, mega-player Arnold Rothstein found a three-day poker game that put him $325,000 in debt and got him shot for his troubles. In the 1930s, Damon Runyon, the scribe of the city’s seamy side, glorified a fixture called the floating crap game. It would inspire the musical Guys and Dolls. During the ’60s, you’d have been hard pressed to find a Bronx candy store that didn’t take sports action between peddling candy cigarettes and Topps baseball cards. A decade later, Stu Ungar roared through what he described as New York’s “goulash joints” and cleaned up at gin and poker before blowing it all with the bookies who forever loomed within easy reach. At the turn of the 21st century, underground poker clubs sprung up with evocative names like the posh-sounding Mayfair Club and the Aquarium, a pun that alluded to being loaded with fish (gamblers’ parlance for weak players). Joints of this ilk were thought to be models for the Chesterfield Club in the movie Rounders.

Of course, those spots were all illegal. But in the near (or less near, depending on whom you ask) future, the Big Apple is expected to explode with legal—and elegant—gaming options. The city is about to issue three casino licenses.