Arnold Rothstein

American racketeer, criminal lord, businessman, and gambler Arnold Rothstein was known by the moniker "The Brain" in New York City. According to rumors, Rothstein orchestrated professional sports corruption, including plans to manipulate the 1919 World Series. He also served as a tutor to several other future crime lords, including Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky, and Frank Costello. Known for being the first to recognize Prohibition as a business opportunity and a path to enormous wealth, Rothstein "transformed organized crime from a thuggish activity by hoodlums into a big business, run like a corporation, with himself at the top" and "understood the truths of early century capitalism (giving people what they want) and came to dominate them".

His fame served as the basis for various fictitious characters, like Meyer Wolfsheim in The Great Gatsby, who were depicted in contemporaneous and subsequent short stories, books, musicals, and films. In 1928, Rothstein was assassinated for refusing to pay back a sizable debt from a rigged poker game. His unlawful business was dismantled, divided up among several other criminal groups, and played a role in Tammany Hall's demise as well as the ascent of reformer Fiorello La Guardia. His brother declared Rothstein's estate bankrupt ten years after his passing. George McManus, the game's organizer, invited Rothstein to his hotel room on November 4. With a gunshot in his stomach, Rothstein departed the hotel; he passed away two days later. Rothstein allegedly staked $500,000 on Herbert Hoover winning the election, and had he lived, he could have repaid the debt. McManus was found not guilty of killing Rothstein.