News Americas, New York, NY, Fri. Feb. 10, 2023: Today we spotlight on another black Caribbean immigrant who went from bellhop to famed gambler and philanthropist in Harlem.
Casper Holstein
Casper Holstein, according to Yellowpigs.com, was a gambler, philanthropist, and Virgin Islands activist who was born on St. Croix in 1876. He moved to New York with his mother at age 12 and attended school in New York. In 1898 he enlisted in the Navy and served on the U.S.S. Saratoga. After returning to New York, he worked as a bellhop, a porter, and for a Wall Street broker from whom he learned much about banking.
Holstein applied his knowledge of banking to gambling. Shortly before World War I, he devised a “numbers game” based on the Spanish game bolito. Players placed bets on a three-digit number in hopes of a large reward. The odds of winning were 1 in 900, and Holstein paid off at a rate of 600 to 1, which left him a sizeable profit.
Holstein spent his wealth as a philanthropist and was one of the six major patrons of the Harlem Renaissance.
In addition, he also invested in several apartment buildings and clubs and subsidized the cost of education for a dozen Virgin Islanders. He established a dairy farm on St. Croix to distribute free milk to needy children. After hurricanes in 1924 and 1928, he established relief funds and chartered a steamship to deliver building materials to the islands.
In the early 1920s he became involved in Anselmo Jackson’s Virgin Islands Congressional Council (VICC). Through the VICC, the Virgin Islands American League, and other organizations, Holstein and other Virgin Islanders sought to gain citizenship, political rights, civil liberties, and civil government for the people of the Virgin Islands, who had been under naval rule since the U.S. purchase of the islands.
But his Harlem gambling profit potential attracted white mobsters to compete with Holstein. In September 1928 Holstein was kidnapped and held for ransom (which he paid). By 1931 the Schultz gang had taken over gambling in Harlem, and Holstein’s days in the business were over. Later, in 1937 Holstein was convicted and sentenced for his racketeering activities.
