Carnival Games: $10,000,000,000 Hoodwink Racket: Organized Crime on the American Midway

Chances are you have been ripped off at a friendly traveling carnival, set up at your local fair or festival, because you had been left unprotected by police.

The intention of this book is not just to tell readers about the games which keep ripping them off, but most importantly to explain the clandestine behind the scenes workings of a not so friendly, well organized, criminal element.

From the innocent looking and usually rigged, two to five dollars per play "Duck Pond," to the $10,000 contribution by the itinerant carnival owner to the state or national political action committee or candidate, the author, a retired police officer, specializing in carnival midway game enforcement, has been able to associate a portion of illegally obtained cash proceeds from anonymous transient weekend midway scammers to carnival owners, to public servants, and also to distinguished politicians.

This 100-year-old entrenched system of confidence crime and public corruption still operates relatively unrestricted at weekend fairs and festivals in America.

Police simply do not arrest carnival thugs or their politician pals. No one cares about duped children or teenagers since many civic leaders ultimately get a cut of the midway loot in some way, shape, or form.

Because this traditional chicanery is actually endorsed by wink & nod carnival security (dubbed "carny-cops") and public officials, trusting carnival patrons have a high likelihood of being either swindled, pick-pocketed, or short-changed on American midways by anonymous serial criminals.

Unfortunately for unprotected American children, all but a few police agents nation-wide are either untrained, don't care, or are on the take, and refuse to address fraud (theft by deception) and gambling violations on their anything-goes, hit & run, carnival turf.

While crooked carnival owners operate these drifting mobile crime syndicates under the radar of federal law enforcement, few citizens know the full extent of the systemic immunity and corruption involved. Thus, victims of this multibillion-dollar racket continue to remain unprotected on 21st century carnival lots.

The author's exclusive investigation describes, for the first time, evidence of facilitation of free-wheeling criminal acts combined with the curious contributions/payoffs which enable this annual crime spree.

The author also uncovers crafty "payments" from culpable carnival owners and lists renowned U.S. politicians associated with the perpetuation of this ten to forty-billion-dollar per year, largely unregulated, rolling racketeer industry.

Always fascinated with trickery, Richard Margittay is a retired Dearborn, Michigan police officer.

A native New Yorker and long time Michigan resident, he is a student of carnival game crimes and was one of only a select few law enforcement officers formally trained in carnival game enforcement in Michigan.

Often called on to demonstrate illegal carnival games to fellow cops and friends, he has enhanced his midway crime proficiency by studying free-wheeling illegal games at a number of carnival locations.

Most importantly, the author has analyzed the presence of corrupt facilitation outside the carnival, perpetuated by dubious payoffs or gifts, which enables carnival-style racketeering to continue unhindered.

Earning a B.S. at Western Michigan University and majoring in Sociology, he has researched not only the games, but the behavioral patterns of both the transient midway con men and their dubious facilitators from the communities.

In addition to his law enforcement career, the author is a retired commissioned officer, who has served in the Michigan Army National Guard and U.S. Army Reserves, with experience as a mechanized rifle platoon leader and a POW camp assistant enclosure commander.

Also, a professional photographer with twenty-two PGA and USGA major golf tournaments to his credit, he has worked for several national sports magazines, including assignments for "Sports Illustrated." He is the featured photographer in "Wings of Fire, The History of the Detroit Red Wings," by Paul Greenland, 1998. One of his World Series photos and his World Series lithograph are part of the historic archives of the Baseball Hall of Fame, in Cooperstown, N.Y.

Richard Margittay has also published "Carnival Games: The Perfect Crimes--An Alert for Law Enforcement and Would-be Victims," 2009.