He was some baby as they say. He had ways of making money that we had never heard of.

My last name is Benstock. I wonder if I am related to Mr. Binstock? Can you tell me more about him? My late father always said he was descended from a family of horse thieves.

He was a Jew and they say he was born in Germany, escaped and was raised in Russia before escaping and coming to England. He was a legend and we were brought up on stories about him which may or may not have been altogether true. He was well known to my family who was in the racing game when I as a kid I did some running for him. He looked like the Devil but he was a gent. He was a super clever fellow and in a different league to anyone I ever knew. One thing he did was fix auctions which is where the money is in racing. We had never thought of it and we had been in the game for ever. He opened the first casinos here, the Sportsmen in London and so on. He became super rich escaped to Spain and owned a casino in Seville. He was connected with not only the mob but the intelligence services and politicians. He wrote a little book called Casino Administration. No one saw him in public for years, he was a bit like Lansky. I don’t know any of his family. One of the old firm just told me he had died recently. He was the biggest property owner in Spain. I hope you are related and get a few quid, good luck.

Doubtful even if we are related! Thanks Tommy.

I was just reading this old article about Gambling Junkets, which is quite interesting in and of itself but I am surprised it does not mention Judah Binstock who was in total control of gambling junkets to and from the USA and England.

The London Vice Squad were corrupt and Binstock had the top officers in his pocket. If Mr Binstock did not want you entering England, then he would have a couple of his bent coppers meet you as got off the plane and they would tell you that you were an undesirable character, deny you entry and send you back home.

It was all very simple, but that gave him a terrific amount of power over who controlled the casinos here, which he knew how to use. There was a filmed interview of him sort of speaking about this but I cannot find it now.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/......ket.html


Apart from that the article mentions cheating on planes in silly games and this sort of stuff still goes on with poker players on the comp circuit, flying together from one place to another.