riverboat gamblers dressed smartly, wore expensive jewelry, and exuded refined respectability. Late 19th century Horse racing Horse racing started as an expensive hobby for the very rich, especially in the South, but the Civil War destroyed the affluence it rested upon. The sport made a come back in the Northeast, under the leadership of elite jockey clubs that operated the most prestigious racetracks. As a spectator sport, the races attracted an affluent audience, as well as struggling, working-class gamblers. The racetracks closely controlled the situation to prevent fraud and keep the sport honest. Off-track, bookmakers relied upon communication systems such as the telegraph and a system of runners which attracted a much wider audience. However, the bookmakers paid off the odds that were set honestly at the racetrack. Chicago In Chicago, like other rapidly growing industrial centers with large immigrant and migrant working-class neighborhoods, gambling was a major issue, and in some contexts a vice. The city's wealthy urban elite had private clubs and closely supervised horse racing tracks. The workers, who discovered freedom and independence in gambling, discovered a world apart from their closely supervised factory jobs. They gambled to validate the risk-taking aspect of masculinity, betting heavily on dice, card games, policy, and cockfights. Already by the 1850s, hundreds of saloons offered gambling opportunities, including off-track betting on the horses. Historian Mark Holler, argues that organized crime provided upward mobility to ambitious people in poverty-stricken non-white communities. The high-income, high-visibility vice lords and racketeers built their careers and profits in these low-income neighborhoods, often branching into local politics to protect their domains. For example, in 1868–1888, Chicago linchpin, Michael C. McDonald—"The Gambler King of Clark Street"—kept numerous Democratic machine politicians on expense accounting to protect his gambling empire and keep the reformers at bay. In larger cities, the exploitation, inherent in illegal gambling and prostitution, was restricted to geographically-segregated red-light districts. The business owners, both legitimate and illicit, were pressured into making scheduled payments to corrupt police and politicians, which they disguised as a licensing expense. The informal rates became standardized, for example, in Chicago in 1912, in ranges of $20 a month for a cheap brothel to $1000 a month for luxurious bordellos. Reformist elements never accepted the segregated vice districts and they wanted them all permanently shut down. In large cities, an influential system of racketeers and a vicious clique of vice lords was economically, socially