Two of Sam Giancana's personal handwritten gambling notebooks, recording daily horse race betting activities: the first, with a card stapled to the front cover marked "Record 1952, Washington Park, Hawthorne Park," contains 38 handwritten pages, the majority of them logging daily win totals, with associated track tickets laid in (on the last two pages, he records annual winnings: "Hawthorne Park Totals, Total Win: 17360.00" and "Washington Park Totals…31112.00 Total Win"); the second records daily bets at Hawthorne Park and Sportsman's Park in 1961, containing 22 pages with handwritten race notes and betting logs, with associated track tickets paperclipped throughout (on the last two pages, Giancana tallies annual totals amounting to $8,680 won at Hawthorne and $46,014 won at Sportsman's). In overall very good to fine condition, with expected signs of heavy use; many of the pages are creased, detached, and frayed at the edges. Provenance: Lots 1180 and 1186, Leslie Hindman Auctioneers, October 22, 1992.
All three of these locations—Washington Park, Hawthorne Park, and Sportsman's Park—were popular Chicago-area horse racing tracks, and these thick betting books attest to the fact that the Chicago Outfit boss was a local fixture. Playing the ponies on a regular basis, he won far more than he lost—a record surely enhanced by his status as the city's top mob boss (he reportedly kept J. Edgar Hoover at bay by feeding him tips on fixed horse races). These gambling books offer unique insight into the day-to-day life of the influential gangster. From the collection of David Gainsborough-Roberts.
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