A01=Paul Bleakley
Al Capone
Australian crime
Australian history
Australian organized crime
Author_Paul Bleakley
Bally
casinos
Category=DNXC
Category=JKVM
Category=NHM
Chicago
Entertainment industry
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
Gambling
Gaming industry
Jack Rooklyn
mafia
New South Wales
organized crime
Poker
police corruption
Quennsland
slot machines
True crime
Product details
- ISBN 9781538177082
- Weight: 476g
- Dimensions: 158 x 230mm
- Publication Date: 15 Jul 2023
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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The Australian Gamble explores Jack Rooklyn’s role as a thread that connects some of the best-recognized characters, and most pivotal events, in Australian criminal history. It is a story that begins overseas, with the origins of the Bally poker machine company — a scandal-prone business with a name that was fated to be forever linked with Rooklyn’s. From humble origins in Al Capone’s Chicago, Bally rode the amusement game wave to become one of the biggest players in the gaming industry worldwide … a status that made it an attractive target for takeover by America’s Italian Mafia. Run out of Cuba on the heels of Castro’s communist revolution, ‘The Families’ were looking for new opportunities to expand their gaming ambitions, both in the desert mecca Las Vegas and (more quietly) through clandestinely sinking their hooks into a financially struggling Bally.
Paul Bleakley is assistant professor of Criminal Justice at the University of New Haven. Before entering the academic world, Paul was a journalist working in both London and Sydney. He is the author of two books on crime in Australia: Under a Bad Sun (2021) and Policing Child Sexual Abuse (2022).
