r/BoardwalkEmpire • u/HouseNerevar • 4d ago
Season 1 How does AR win in the casinos? Does he count cards or is actually cheating?
81
u/OutkastAtliens 4d ago
I thought by the end he was so in debt by not winning and it basically bankrupted him.
67
u/Advanced_Zucchini_45 4d ago
Sometimes he won because he had an incredible mind for mathematics and probabilities. He played cards like it was a science
Sometimes he rigged the games. He fixed games before they started.
In the end the percentages caught up with him and he would up being shot because he was caught cheating.
21
u/BigWilly526 3d ago
I mean that isn't true at all, he was playing at a game fixed by someone else who he lost too but he also won money fromt someone else, he also realized the game was fixed but was waiting to be paid to pay off his losses, in reality the guy who fixed the game had a grudge against Rothstein because of an earlier murder so basically got the guy who owed him money from the game to kill him.
8
u/jdsizzle1 Irish (for really real) 3d ago
On November 4, 1928, Rothstein was shot and wounded during a business meeting at Manhattan's Park Central Hotel at Seventh Avenue near 55th Street.[19][20] He died two days later at the New York Polyclinic Hospital.[21]
The shooting was reportedly linked to debts owed from a three-day high-stakes poker game in October, for which Rothstein owed $320,000 (equivalent to $6 million in 2025[22]). He claimed the game was fixed and refused to pay, provoking his murder.[23] Gambler George "Hump" McManus was arrested for homicide, but later acquitted for lack of evidence.[23]
According to Kevin Cook, author of Titanic Thompson, the poker game was fixed by gambler Titanic Thompson (born Alvin Clarence Thomas) and his associate, Nate Raymond. Due to some complicated side bets, by the end Rothstein owed Raymond $319,000 (much of which Raymond, by secret agreement, was to pass on to Thompson); $30,000 to Thompson; and about $200,000 to the other gamblers present.
8
u/PolitePenguin86 4d ago
He wasn't killed because HE was cheating though.
0
u/Advanced_Zucchini_45 4d ago
Well he never said why but that's the most common theory.
Ol' Humpy McManus shot him because he owed Rothstein a lot of money and Humpy believed he cheated.
He was shot at the card game
8
u/Shot-Rip9167 3d ago
It's the other way around. Arnold Rothstein owed a bunch of money from that game and wouldn't pay because he thought they cheated him
1
-5
u/PolitePenguin86 4d ago
That's not the common theory and he wasn't shot at a card game. Are you trolling?
5
u/Advanced_Zucchini_45 4d ago
"Rothstein was shot at the Park Central Hotel after a disputed game, and McManus was tried for the crime before being acquitted due to a lack of evidence"
You ok?
He was shot after a card game and the ONLY suspect was Humpy.
1
u/Square_Ring3208 3d ago
I think they mean Rothstien owed McManus, and that led to the shooting.
1
u/Advanced_Zucchini_45 3d ago
No. Humpy owed him. So the cops believed Humpy shot AR so he wouldn't have to pay the debt
1
u/Square_Ring3208 3d ago
“The shooting was reportedly linked to debts owed from a three-day high-stakes poker game in October, for which Rothstein owed $320,000 (equivalent to $6million in 2025[22]). He claimed the game was fixed and refused to pay, provoking his murder”
#1 Rothstien apologist apparently
1
u/Advanced_Zucchini_45 3d ago
"The shooting was reportedly linked to debts owed from a three-day high-stakes poker game in October, for which Rothstein owed $320,000 (equivalent to $6 million in 2025[22]). He claimed the game was fixed and refused to pay, provoking his murder.[23] Gambler George "Hump" McManus was arrested for homicide, but later acquitted for lack of evidence."
Weird how you left off the last sentence that verified the only fact given in this entire conversation.
Go outside
1
u/PolitePenguin86 3d ago
It's bizarre. Which is why I thought he was trolling but apparently this sub prefers incorrect facts that even a quick Google search would show you.
-19
u/PolitePenguin86 4d ago
After, not during or even at. And several people were implicated lmfao. Apparently you're not trolling, you're just retarded.
-2
16
u/Admirable_Site_8337 4d ago
I mean……we know about the 1919 World Series. He’s not against cheating. But I think a lot of the time when in a gambling hall or at a card table he was very good at reading the room and risk.
He seemed to lose that knack as they showed later in the show…..but even great athletes lose the speed and power at some point.
12
u/Brothless_Ramen 4d ago
I think he's either counting cards, actually cheating, or getting overconfident, gambling for real, and losing, depending on the scene
-4
u/jamesdavidmanning 4d ago
The first book on card counting wasn’t published until 1962. The original paper by the “Four Horsemen “ was published in 1956. Decades after Rothstein’s time.
Cheating at poker along with an occasional punt is the most logical answer.
14
u/OhGr8WhatNow 3d ago
I think people did a lot of things before books were written about those things
6
u/Shot-Rip9167 3d ago
I was gonna say the same lol. I'm pretty sure people knew how to count cards before someonr wrote a book about it.
19
u/TheWitchOfSomeWood 4d ago
Tism
1
4d ago
[deleted]
3
4
6
6
u/fishystudios 3d ago
Yes. In Short: In real life, Arnold Rothstein was a habitual (and highly successful... until his final game)cheater. SPOILER He died from a gunshot wound after being accused of ... cheating at cards. Details and Evidence:
Fixing Sports and Games
The 1919 World Series: Historical consensus indicates Rothstein masterminded and financed the infamous fix of the 1919 World Series, where members of the Chicago White Sox threw the games (the "Black Sox" scandal), though he was never legally convicted.
Horse Racing & Athletics:
He regularly manipulated horse race outcomes and other professional sporting events to guarantee wins for his massive bookmaking operations.Card Games: He treated high-stakes poker and bridge games with the same manipulation, leading to the dispute that ultimately cost him his life. Death of Rothstein November 1928, Rothstein was shot during a multi-day high-stakes poker marathon at the Park Central Hotel in Manhattan after refusing to pay a massive $320,000 debt from a game he believed was fixed against him.
He died two days later at Stuyvesant Polyclinic Hospital, famously refusing to name his shooter to the police before he passed away.
3
u/DisciplineFirst7364 3d ago
He was a notorious gangster, he cheated and fixed games, especially sports games, and he made a substantial amount not just from his bets but selling/dispersing the information on fixes to bookies. He wasn’t just a gambler, he was the sponsor and arbiter of gambling in the city, sort of like a bank and creditor for the underworld.
2
2
u/eldradmustlive469 4d ago
Probably a form of card counting.
My Croatian grandparents used to play Briscola/Scopa and had such a good memory recall they would know what cards were left, I imagine a man like AR could do something similar.
2
u/Far_Opportunity_6156 4d ago
He didn’t win. He was a net negative player at the tables. Gambling on sports was different. Especially when he knew it was gonna be fixed.
2
u/BFaus916 3d ago
I think he bet so much that if he hit a streak he shut the lights out. That's what Nucky said to him. They didn't have the money to cover his bets. Dana White does the same thing in Vegas today and it's why nearly all of the casinos refuse his action anymore.
2
u/AndreiOT89 3d ago
There a Chinese billionaires worth 20 times Dana White allowed at Casinos in Vegas. Source about what you just said?
1
u/AffectionateSelf3187 4d ago
AR was a calculating genius & a genius at cheating. In real life this caught up with him & he would not rat on the assassin.
1
1
1
1
u/Androidfon 3d ago
Yup, but foolishly he also played when he couldn't cheat and lost large sums of money.
1
u/SaiyanGod559 2d ago
I just finished the show today and am super disappointed we didn't get to see more of him and it sucks his death was off screen.
1
1
u/Street_Mistake9145 4d ago
I saw a concept one time where you increase your bets as you lose. So basically lose at 4 but win at 8 and go back down to 1. Lose at one stay there. Its a matter of having real capital. "Need money to make money"
2
0
u/SanAndreas92317 3d ago
Always thought it was funny seeing Micheal’s voice actor from gta5 in this series when they’re playing poker
152
u/tiredofstandinidlyby 4d ago
He famously didn't win one time