Einstoss

1939-1941

Bernard “Bernie” Einstoss was a well-known gambler in Northern Nevada for nearly two decades, between 1947 and 1965.* Prior to that, he masterminded and executed a scheme to fix horse races** in California by bribing and threatening jockeys to “pull” the horses they commandeered, or keep them from winning.

Einstoss went by the name Barney Mooney and introduced himself to people as Mooney.** He earned the nickname “Big Mooney,” wrote John Christgau, “because he liked to sweep into fancy nightclubs and set up the house with drinks — especially champagne, if he was flush from a big winning bet” (The Gambler and The Bug Boy). Einstoss began placing bets in grade school on marbles and chocolates and by high school, which he dropped out of, had progressed to wagering on prize fights, horse racing, baseball and more.

How It Worked

Einstoss, 27, with the help of some accomplices, launched his race fixing scheme with the season’s start in 1939 in Southern California, where he ran a suite of bookmaking rooms in Los Angeles with fellow gamblers, Benjamin Chapman and I.W. “Doc Kebo” Kivel.

The three spread tips around Hollywood movie lots that specific horses were sure to win in certain races, and they’d take the bets on them. Specific targets were high rollers like George Raft and Don Ameche. Then Einstoss would have the jockeys riding those horses deliberately lose the races. The trio profited from the betters’ (or suckers’) losses, assuredly and amply.

Manipulation Of Jockeys

Einstoss had intermediaries recruit and pay jockeys who could be bribed, typically those who were young, under age 20 for instance, vulnerable and desperate for money. Based on handicapping percentages, Einstoss determined which horses he wanted to lose and got word to the corresponding jockeys to “pull” them, sometimes multiple horses for one jockey in a day. Einstoss paid the riders $200 (about $3,500 today) per favorite and $100 ($1,700 today) per longshot horse they pulled and paid the go-betweens $200 per jockey they turned.

Einstoss had thrashed a jockey who hadn’t done what he’d asked, and most expressed a fear of him and belief that he’d kill them if provoked. In at least one instance, when a jockey failed to lose a race because he couldn’t physically restrain the horse, Einstoss told him, “You cost me $30,000! Thirty-thousand dollars! I’ve thrown boys in the ocean for less” (The Gambler and The Bug Boy). (This is equivalent to about $532,000 today.)

“These boys, I feel sorry for personally because I believe that they are just young kids, that is all, and they are not mature. They have not the state of mind to think things out … and they are tempted with easy money … far more than they ever saw before in their lives,” Jerry Giesler, chairman of the California Horse Racing Board, said at a hearing where numerous jockeys were compelled to tell what they knew about the race fixing.

Perpetrators Caught, Plot Halted

In November 1940, following an investigation, Einstoss was arrested and, eventually, so were his partners in crime. They were his brother, gopher and bet taker, Jack Einstoss; gamblers Chapman and Kivel; and two middlemen, Saul “Sonny” Greenberg, a horse trainer, and James Joseph Murphy, real name Irving Sangbusch, a race track follower.

Because fixing races wasn’t illegal (yet) in California, the group was charged with conspiracy and contributing to the delinquency of minors (the jockeys).

The Prosecution’s Case

At the trial, which began on February 28, 1941, the State of California argued that the defendants ran bookmaking establishments and through control of jockeys, altered the outcomes of races on which they’d accepted wagers and themselves had bet at the tracks. Prosecutors alleged that the group had fixed more than 100 races at various tracks — Hollywood Park, Del Mar, Bay Meadows and Tanforan — yielding an estimated $1 million (about $17.7 million today).

Sangbusch/Murphy testified for the state in exchange for removal of the charges against him. He explained that Reno, Nevada mobster and illegal gambler William “Bill/Curly” Graham had suggested to him that he contact Einstoss and had furnished the phone number. Sangbusch followed through, and the next day met with Einstoss, Kivel, Chapman and others at the bookies’ Hollywood headquarters, where they discussed the race fixing strategy. Subsequently, Sangbusch began working as an intermediary for the group. He admitted to having distributed about $20,000 ($355,000 today) in bribes from Einstoss to certain jockeys.

Defense: Gambler With Scruples

When Einstoss, free on $3,000 bail, took the stand, he claimed he made money by gambling on odds as opposed to race fixing through bribing jockeys. His attorney, Paul McCormick, argued that Einstoss was “always an honest gambler” (Los Angeles Times, May 3, 1941) yet admitted that Einstoss had given money to the jockeys and had known the jockeys, of their own accord, likely were going to pull their horses.

“But the facts are that the jockeys approached Einstoss,” not the other way around, McCormick added. “They were touting him to bet on certain horses and he paid them money for their tips. It is very probable that they might have pulled those horses to make their tips good and therefore collect more money.”

During final arguments, Einstoss “burst into tears,” got up, left the courtroom, went into an adjoining room, sat and sobbed (Nevada State Journal, May 16, 1941).

The End Result

After two months of testimony, at May’s end, the jury found Einstoss guilty on four misdemeanor counts of contributing to the delinquency of minors but not on the conspiracy charge. The judge ordered he serve a year in county jail and pay a $1,000 ($17,000 today) fine. The convicted man did both.

Subsequently, Einstoss moved to Reno, Nevada. Over the ensuing decades, he co-owned and had some involvement in the casino operations at the Mapes and Riverside hotels and the Horseshoe Club in Reno, along with the Bal Tabarin at Lake Tahoe in Crystal Bay. He had a smaller, nonoperational ownership in Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.

Most of the jockeys who participated in the plot were suspended indefinitely from horse racing in California.

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* Bernard Einstoss died in 1966 at age 53 in Southern California.
** Horse racing under the parimutuel wagering system has been legal in The Golden State since 1933.
*** The name “Mooney” comes from the Gaelic word “maoin,” which translates into “wealthy” or “descendant of the wealthy one.”

Sources

Former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover was such a rabid fan of horse racing that every summer, when in nearby La Jolla for his annual physical exam, he visited Del Mar in California, where he had a designated parking space and a private Turf Club box. Along with spectating, he wagered, frequently as much as $200 a race.

“The story in the corridors of the FBI building was that the agent who had the grayest hair was the one assigned to get Hoover to the race track on time,” wrote John Christgau in The Gambler & The Bug Boy: 1939 Los Angeles and the Untold Story of a Horse Racing Fix.

Photo from the FBI

1930s

1937

An armored truck, accompanied by three deputy sheriff cars, was moving $262,000 (about $4.5 million today) the 15 miles from the Del Mar racetrack in California down the coastal highway to a San Diego bank. The money was the track’s share of one day’s parimutuel handle, or total amount wagered. This amount, from that single day, was roughly two-thirds the revenue that the City of Reno, Nevada generated over a year, the 1937-1938 fiscal year, from gambling taxes and license fees.

An anonymous phone report of a murder at a café in the City of Del Mar caused the deputies to abandon the transport vehicle and head there.

When they arrived, though, they learned the phone call had been a ruse, likely to isolate the money-containing truck so it could be robbed more easily. Upon the deputies radioing in their discovery, a swarm of law enforcement officers responded. They reached the armored vehicle in time to foil any holdup and get the cash to its destination without incident.

Racetrack Beginnings

Crooner and thoroughbred horse owner and racing fan, Bing Crosby, was behind the development of the Del Mar racetrack. He and actor Pat O’Brien convinced a handful of mostly Hollywood celebrities to invest cumulatively about $2 million (about $34 million today) to lease the new Del Mar Fairgrounds and add a racetrack, facilities and clubhouse. Along with Crosby and O’Brien, the Del mar partnership consisted of fellow actors Gary Cooper, Joe E. Brown and Oliver Hardy and businessman/racehorse owner, Charles S. Howard.

“Del Mar has class written all over it — from the stable area to the swanky interior of the Turf Club,” described Paul Lowry (Los Angeles Times, June 29, 1937). “Del Mar has the Spanish touch of old California, the artistic, aristocratic air of the day of the Dons. The buildings are in keeping from stem to stern — from the adobe outer walls to the architectural dream that brought the clubhouse and grandstand into being.”

With A Grin And A Song

On the Del Mar racetrack’s opening day, Wednesday, July 7, 1937, Crosby greeted the attendees, about 20,000 in all. “[He] appeared at the grandstand turnstiles, smoking his pipe and tipping his dark blue yachting cap to customers as they entered the grounds,” wrote John Christgau in The Gambler & The Bug Boy.

After the bugle sounded for the inaugural race, Crosby sand Where The Turf Meets The Surf, a ditty he co-wrote with James V. Monaco and Johnny Burke specifically for the Del Mar racetrack:

Where the turf meets the surf
Down at old Del Mar
Take a plane
Take a train
Take a car.
There is a smile on every face
And a winner in each race
Where the turf meets the surf
At Del Mar.

The track’s handle for the season’s first day was $183,041 (roughly $3.15 million today).

Sources

Photo from Wikimedia Commons