Manny Kimmel

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Manny Kimmel
Born(1896-04-14)April 14, 1896
DiedJuly 18, 1982(1982-07-18) (aged 84)

Emmanuel Kimmel (April 14, 1896 – July 18, 1982)[1] was a notable underworld figure between the 1930s and 1960s and the founder of the Kinney Parking Company, a chain of parking lots and garages which evolved into the media conglomerate Warner Communications and ultimately the present day Warner Bros. Discovery.

According to Connie Bruck,[2] he cooperated with the major racketeer and bootlegger in Newark, Abner Zwillman. According to William Poundstone, Kimmel leased his garages to Zwillman, for storage of liquor during the Prohibition Era.[3] FBI kept tabs on him for his business dealings with known mafia figures, and compelled him to testify in the trials of two of them; Abner Zwillman and Joe Adonis.[2][4]

An illegal bookie in his early years, running the numbers game and other illicit gambling bookmaking activities in New Jersey, he was perhaps the biggest horseracing bookmaker in New York at one time, and owner of several racing horses himself. He is also known for his early forays into card counting in Blackjack in the early sixties, as he financed Edward O. Thorp's card-counting efforts. He was called "Mr. X" in the 1962 book Beat the Dealer by Thorp.[5]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Mannie Kimmel, big-stakes gamblers". Newspapers.com. The Miami Herald. Retrieved 1 November 2020.
  2. ^ a b Bruck, Connie (2013). Master of the Game: Steve Ross and the Creation of Time Warner. Riverside: Simon & Schuster. pp. 29–30. ISBN 9781476737706.
  3. ^ Poundstone, William (2005). "Epilogue". Fortune's Formula: The Untold Story of the Scientific Betting System That Beat the Casinos and Wall Street (PDF) (1 ed.). New York: Hill and Wang. ISBN 978-0809045990. Retrieved 29 April 2022.
  4. ^ "Keeping it in 'The Family:' Director's Mobbed-Up Dad". 22 September 2017. Retrieved 27 October 2020.
  5. ^ Pogue, David. "Wanna Bet?", The New York Times, September 25, 2005. Accessed September 28, 2008.