The Australian Gamble explores Jack Rooklyn’s role as a thread that connects some of the best-recognized characters, and most pivotal events, in Australian criminal history. It is a story that begins overseas, with the origins of the Bally poker machine company — a scandal-prone business with a name that was fated to be forever linked with Rooklyn’s. From humble origins in Al Capone’s Chicago, Bally rode the amusement game wave to become one of the biggest players in the gaming industry worldwide … a status that made it an attractive target for takeover by America’s Italian Mafia. Run out of Cuba on the heels of Castro’s communist revolution, ‘The Families’ were looking for new opportunities to expand their gaming ambitions, both in the desert mecca Las Vegas and (more quietly) through clandestinely sinking their hooks into a financially struggling Bally.