A major vice squad raid in 1892 shut down eleven gambling dens that had been offering poker, roulette, craps, and faro. ĭespite the regulations against policy, gambling in the city was largely ignored by the authorities until the 1890s, when city clergymen pressured police to take action. The game was mostly ignored by police until the early 1880s, when a state anti-policy law led to a crackdown that relegated it to the underground. Frank Dalzell was the city’s policy king, running a game so profitable that he lived in a palatial mansion on Twenty-First Street and Grand Avenue. Twice per day, winning numbers were drawn in a national office in Kentucky and wired to the city. Bets could be placed at a number of saloons and stores where policy agents, who reported back to a central boss, were stationed. īy the 1870s, a game for the masses had reached Milwaukee in “policy.” The game was almost identical to the modern-day lottery, with players making a small bet on a small series of numbers. Whiteside later used the connections he had made in the game to gain election to the 1846 state constitutional convention and later served the very first assembly speaker of the state assembly. Among those who ran a regular game was Ninian Whiteside, who had been drawn to the area during the mining boom of the 1840s. There was little popular outrage about the presence of the game or the tendency of respectable residents to wager money while playing. įaro, a card game with origins in France, was among the most popular games of chance in early Milwaukee. A crooked dealer was “liable to serve as a target for some inconsiderate opponent who preferred a shooting affray to losing against a sure thing,” according to an 1895 remembrance in the Milwaukee Journal. These men, flush with cash and accustomed to a rugged lifestyle, made sure that the village’s earliest card games were honest. The area’s earliest gambling dens catered to lead miners from across southeastern Wisconsin. As is the case with most matters of vice, gambling has a history in Milwaukee that dates back to the community’s foundations.

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