But don’t think bookmaking is a peanut industry either. Local authorities estimate the take of bookmakers within the District at $100,000,000 a year—not gross business, but net profits.
Horse money goes to Prince Georges, Maryland, as already described. Snags Lewis, the wire service representative, transmits the payoff and profits to New York and New Jersey.
Though Bernice Franklin, former sweetheart of Attilio Acalotti, testified in federal court that at least three members of the Metropolitan Police were paid off by gamblers in her presence, Washington authorities never show any enthusiasm toward investigating charges of corruption against cops.
When District Commissioner John Russell Young testified recently before a special grand jury probing Washington gambling, he was not asked about the possibility of bribes being paid by the gamblers. Assistant U. S. Attorney John W. Fihelly, conducting the inquiry, left it flat and started on “several weeks vacation.”
You can freely make a bet on a horse in almost any place in Washington except a church—with elevator boys in government buildings, at corner cigar and drug stores, lunch stands and bellboys. If you still can’t find a place, the ingenuity of the Washington bookmaker will solve your problem. For instance, the police said they broke the biggest gambling brokerage ever operated in Washington with the arrest of two men in a “doctor’s office,” on California Avenue, N.W. Police said one of the men they arrested was a physician. He told them he could make more money with betting slips than with prescriptions.
“There wasn’t even a band-aid in the place.” But there were the following items:
Betting slips; a looseleaf notebook which appeared to be a gambling broker’s record, containing $75,000 in IOU’s from all over the country; two promissory notes totaling $35,000; $134 in cash, an expensive radio, and a clock with a sweep second-hand. While police went through the place the phone rang. A voice on the other end “started to give me hell for a bum steer, saying the odds had dropped to 8 to 5,” Sergt. James Roche said.
Police Lt. David McCutcheon told the District license board that a gambler paid the proprietors of Filo’s restaurant, 1700-A 9th Street, NW, $200 a month for the concession to take bets there. At this writing Filo’s is still in business.
During the seasons, Washington gamblers make book on baseball, football, basketball and hockey. Walter Lephfew and Skylar Wilson were arrested this year in what is described as a $2,000,000 football lottery.
We placed bets with bookies who hang out in the G & W Lunch Room, 17th and L.