Features
Booze, Glorious Booze! Bill Wolchock and Prohibition in Manitoba
Ed. introduction: This story was originally published to our website in October, 2023, but it resonated so much with readers – who have continually told me they enjoyed it so much, I’ve decided to bring it back to our Home page every once in a while. It has received an astounding number of views since it was first published – over 10,000 – making it the most popular story ever published on this website.
To explain, last September, I began what turned into an unexpectedly amusing dive into a part of our Jewish community’s history that is endlessly fascinating to me when I wrote about a book that was published in October titled “Jukebox Empire: The Mob and the Dark Side of the Amerian Dream.”
That book is about someone by the name of Wilf Rabin, who was originally Wilf Rabinovitch. Rabin was born in Morden, but moved to Chicago as a young man. Eventually he became involved in the juke box business – a business which was ripe from the outset for exploitation by criminals, especially the Mafia, as juke boxes spun out huge amounts of cash that were never reported to tax authorities.
In the course of writing my article about that book, I mentioned several other Jewish characters who preferred to make their money illegally. I also referred to someone whose name was spelled “Bill Wolchuk” in a book about Winnipeg’s North End, but I made the mistake of saying “Wolchuk” wasn’t Jewish.
Boy, did that unleash a torrent of corrections from readers. It was made quite clear to me that Bill “Wolchock” was very much Jewish – and that he was practically a legend in this town.
Then I received a phone call from reader Arnold Rice, who told me that he had in his possession an article from a December 2, 2002 Winnipeg Free Press about Bill Wolchock. Arnold offered to loan me the article, but I declined, saying I could probably find the article on the Winnipeg Pubic Library digital archives.
That I did – and when I scanned the article, which was written by a former Free Press writer by the name of Bill Redekop, I thought to myself: Here’s the perfect article for our Rosh Hashanah issue: It’s much too long to ever fit into any other issue – and the theme will likely resonate with many of our readers who might consider atoning for their sins on Yom Kippur.
In any event, I was able to get in touch with Bill Redekop and I obtained his permission to reprint the article in full (for a fee, of course). It turns out the article forms a chapter in a book written by Redekop in 2002, titled “Crimes of the Century – Manitoba’s Most Notorious True Crimes.”
I told Redekop that I was actually able to find the book on Amazon – much to his amazement, but that it was also available at several branches of the Winnipeg Public Library. Now, it wasn’t easy transcribing that chapter of Redekop’s book, but I thought it might prove delightful reading for many of our readers.
So, here goes: The story of Manitoba’s greatest bootlegger – Bill Wolchock – someone whose success was on a par with that other great Jewish bootlegging family: the Bronfmans. (Wolchock, however, liked bootlegging so much that he turned down the opportunity to go straight, unlike the Bronfmans. Can you just imagine how much the Combined Jewish Appeal could have benefited from a “straight” Bill Wolchock? And what of all the buildings that would have been named after him – and honours he would have received from our Jewish community, if he had only decided to emulate the Bronfmans?)
A pair of employees talking on the floor of the CNR shops in Transcona sounds like an unlikely launch to the biggest bootleg operation in Manitoba history.
It was the early 1920s under Prohibition. Leonard Wolchock, 74 son of bootlegger, Bill Wolchock, tells the story.
“Sonny (nickname), a CNR boilermaker one day came up to my dad, who was a machinist with the railway and asked if he could make a part for him. “What’s it for?” my dad asked. “It’s for a still,” Sonny said. Sonny was making stills for farmers out in the country. My dad said, “Sonny, you want to make a still? I’ll make you a still and we’re not going to fool around!”
What began as a still to make a little booze for themselves and friends during Canada’s Prohibition certain soon turned into something much bigger. The two CNR workers realized there was an insatiable thirst for their product. “I don’t think dad planned to be in the business for a long time. It was just going good,” said Leonard.
“Before you know it, my dad was making big booze. He could knock out almost 1000 gallons a day. He wasn’t one of these Mickey Mouse guys making 10 gallons like in the country, like in Libau and all these places. And as time went by, he became very big.”
Sonny and Wolchock parted ways when Wolchock quit the railway to work full-time at alcohol production, but other partners came on side. Every one of them was the same: blue collar men like Wolchock who made a living with their hands.
During Prohibition in the 1920s, Bill Wolchock ran the biggest bootlegging business in Manitoba. He was producing tens of thousands of gallons of 65% overproof alcohol – 94% pure alcohol.
Later, after his business took off, Wolchock shipped almost exclusively to the United States and mostly to gangsters. He stored illegal in farmers’ barns from the village of Reston in southwestern Manitoba to the village of Tolstoi in southeastern Manitoba. He stored illegal booze in a coal yard that used to be on Osborne Street in Winnipeg; in a large automobile service station in St. Boniface;. and in a St. Boniface lumberyard. He stored booze in a Pritchard Avenue horse barn. Those are just some of the known locations.
At the height of the Great Depression, Leonard estimates his father employed as many as 50 people who would not have been able to put food on the table otherwise. “They all had families, they all had houses, they all could put groceries on the table, thanks to the illegal business,” said Leonard.
Crooks or entrepreneurs?
Wolchock’s story has euded historians all these years. When Wolchock was finally caught and sentenced to five years in prison for income tax evasion, the Second World War was on, and his case didn’t get the publicity it might have otherwise. Besides, the Prohibition era had been over for more than a decade and was old news. Wolchock hadn’t gone straight like the whiskey-making Bronfman family, but had continued to bootleg long after Prohibition had ended.
Leonard Wolchock told the story of his father and a gang of North End bootleggers for the first time for this book. The story was checked against news clippings from the period.
Wolchock owned at least two large stills in Winnipeg. A huge four-story still operation in a building that was in the 1000 block on Logan Avenue, just east of McPhillips Street, that produced up to 400 gallons a day; and a huge still in a building that used to be on Tache Avenue, about 300 meters west of the Provencher Bridge on the river side. He also had smaller stills, often in rural locations and owned portable stills. He moved around from barn to barn outside Winnipeg to elude police.
Wolchock never considered what he was doing wrong, said his son. He thought the governments were wrong. People were going to find a way to drink one way or another.
“My father was a manufacturer. He was filling a niche market. I’m not ashamed of anything he did,” said Leonard.
Even the police chief who lived just five doors down from the Wolchock home at 409 Boyd Avenue would drop in regularly for a friendly drink. The fire commissioner, who lived one street over on College Avenue and three houses down, was another thirsty visitor. Granted, Wolchock ran a little import liquor businesses as a front, which was legal at the time, but Leonard has little doubt the authorities knew what his father’s main source of income was.
“The chief of police knew what my father was doing, and the fire chief was over at our place all the time!” said Leonard.
When the RCMP finally moved in on his father for income tax evasion, it was a measure of the respect for Wolchock that he was never arrested. Police called his dad with the news, said Leonard. “The police chief phoned up and said, ‘Bill, I want you to come down.’ They never sent anyone to get him.”
Booze, glorious booze! Was it more glamorous in Prohibition when it was illegal, or was the illegal liquor trade more harmful by turning otherwise law abiding men into criminals? Was illegal liquor more dangerous to your health (alcohol poisoning), and did concealed drink drinking lead to more serious drinking problems?
While both Canada and the United States brought in Prohibition, there was a great gulf in how Prohibition played out in the two countries. Like a typical Canadian TV drama, Prohibition was more shouting than shooting in Canada. In the United States, it was more shooting. Much more.
Corpses in the gangster booze wars in the US were rarely found with just one or two bullets in them, but four, five, eight. Gangsters adopted the submachine gun invented by John Thompson in the 1920s, variously dubbed the Tommy Gun, Chopper Gat, and Chicago Typewriter. Frank Gusenberg took 22 bullets in the famous St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in Chicago, when Al Capone’s men disguised as police officers lined up seven of George “Bugs” Moran’s men against a warehouse wall and opened fire. One creative reporter at the time wrote the machine guns “belched death.”
These two news stories from a single September day in 1930 on the front page of the Manitoba Free Press are typical:
Detroit, Michigan: “An unidentified man was killed tonight by two assassins, armed with sawed-off shotguns who stepped out of an automobile, fired four charges into the body of their victim and escaped in the auto. It was the third gang killing of the week here.
Elizabeth, New Jersey: “Twelve gunmen waited in ambush within Sunrise Brewery here today, disarming a raiding party of seven dry agents and shot and killed one of the invaders.” One federal agent was found shot eight times. “The gangsters, who apparently had been forewarned of the raid, than escaped.”
There are likely several reasons why Canada didn’t go the gangster route. One, there were more loopholes in Canadian law to get liquor if you wanted. For example, you could get a prescription for “medical” brandy. Two, we have never been as gun-happy as the Americans. And three, our Prohibition didn’t last as long. Prohibition in the U.S. ran from 1920-1933. In Manitoba, Prohibition started in 1916 and ended in 1923.
While Canada didn’t have the gang wars like down south, it did become the feeder system, the exporter, the good neighbour and free trader to the U.S. for liquor. Our Prohibition was winding down just as American Prohibition was getting started in 1920. How fortuitous for an enterprising bootlegger! Manitobans could legally buy liquor from the government and run it across the border into the hands of thirsty Americans.
And being neighbourly, we did. One of the major gateways was the Turtle Mountains in southwestern Manitoba. Booze poured through the hills, said James Ritchie, archivist with the Boissevain and Morton Regional Library.
“A longstanding tradition of smuggling through the Turtle Mountains already existed before Prohibition. People had already been smuggling things across for 50 years or more, so alcohol was just more item of trade,” Richie said.
Minot, North Dakota, of all places, was a gangster haven and was dubbed “Little Chicago” back then. A railway town, it served it as a distribution hub for liquor coming in from Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
The 65-kilometer border of Turtle Mountain Hills is carved with trails every few kilometers so there was no way a border patrol could close down the rum running, said Richie. Many of the trails were simply road allowances where a road hadn’t got built. “If you tried to cross anywhere near Emerson, where it’s so flat, the custom guard could see your car coming from 10 miles away. You can’t do that in the Turtles. The custom guard can’t see you from 500 feet away,” said Ritchie.
Many a poor southwestern Manitoba farm family augmented their income with a little rumrunning. They could buy a dozen bottles every two weeks, the government-set allotment for personal use, and sell it for profit just a few miles away. “Prohibition created an economic opportunity for a lot of families,” said Ritchie.
But it was small trade compared to what the Bronfmans would do. Ezekiel and Mindel Bronfman arrived in Brandon in the late 1800s. The 1901 Canada Census lists them as residents of Brandon, along with their children, including Harry and Sam. It was after the Bronfmans had moved to Saskatchewan that they began selling whiskey to the United States in the 1920s. They exported whiskey by the boxcar-load. They later moved to Brandon briefly, where they continued the rumrunning before finally setting up in Montreal.
Meanwhile, Winnipeg was the bacchanalia of the West prior to Prohibition, as the late popular history writer James H Gray, liked to say. By 1882, Winnipeg had 86 hotels, most of which had had saloons. It also had five breweries, 24 wine and liquor stores (15 of which were on Main Street), and 64 grocery stores selling whiskey. The population was just 16,000.
When government turned off the tap, Manitobans went underground. Private stills sprang up everywhere. Ukrainian farmers were famous for their stills and acted as engineering consultants for the rest of the community. The Ukrainians seemed to have an inborn talent for erecting the contraptions, and some stills made the old country potato whiskey. In Ukrainian settlements like Vida, Sundown, and Tolstoi someone’s child was always assigned the task of changing the pail from under the spigot that caught the slow dripping distilled whiskey.
Even Winnipeg Mayor Ralph Webb, who had an artificial leg and was manager of the Marlborough Hotel, campaigned for more liberal liquor laws. Webb wanted to attract tourism by promoting Winnipeg as “the city of snowballs and highballs.”
The United States was interested in the Canadian experiment with Prohibition and summoned Francis William Russell, president of the Moderation League of Manitoba, a group that opposed Prohibition, to a U.S. Senate committee in Washington in 1926. Russell said Prohibition simply resulted in the proliferation of stills in Manitoba.
Arrests for illegal stills rose from 40 in 1918, two years into Prohibition in Manitoba, to 300 by 1923. “We found that the province of Manitoba was covered with stills,” he said. He claimed Prohibition hadn’t stopped drinking, it had just kicked it out of the public bar and into the home where it wreaked havoc on families.
One of the strangest still stories took place in the RM of Springfield, just east of Winnipeg, when an RCMP officer and a Customs inspector came across a “mystery” shack. Sure enough, they found a still inside and went in and began dismantling the evidence. Unknown to them, the owners arrived, saw what was going on, and set fire to the shack with them in it. The agents escaped the flames in time, but so did the arsonists, and no charges were laid.
Yet historical accounts only mentioned small stills in Manitoba. Some historians concluded there was no major bootlegging out of Winnipeg, just small neighbourhood and homestead stills. The story of Bill Wolchock shows that not to be true.
Winnipeg had two large thirsty markets in its vicinity: the Twin Cities, St. Paul and Minneapolis in Minnesota, and to a lesser extent, Chicago, Illinois.
St. Paul was a nest of gangsters. John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, Machine Gun Kelly, and Ma Barker and her sons, all took refuge in the city at one time or another. The person who ran the underworld in St. Paul was gangster Isadore “Kid Cann” Blumenfeld.
Chicago, of course, was the gangster capital of North America, controlled by Al Capone.
Capone was just 25 years old when he controlled Chicago. It does seem that Prohibition brought many young people into crime. Another Chicago bootlegger, Hymie Weiss, was gunned down by Capone’s men at the tender age of 28. “Hymie Weiss was not Jewish as his name suggests, but Catholic. His real name was Wajciechowski, and Hymie was a nickname.)
Wolchock and his partners were in their early twenties when they started selling booze. Wolchock shipped pure alcohol to both the Twin Cities and Chicago, but more so to Minnesota. When his son Leonard attended a convention in Minneapolis years later, he was feted by a gangster-looking character who recognized Leonard’s resemblance to his father. The gangster offered to foot his bill.
Wolchock Sr. Also sold to Duluth, Minnesota, and to Alberta distilleries. It’s also likely he was also shipping to Minot, since he was storing alcohol in barns in southwestern Manitoba. His business was selling to other manufacturers who brewed the pure alcohol into liquor. He would get rich from it.
Archibald William Wolchock was born in Minsk, Russia, which is now in Ukraine, in 1898, and came to Winnipeg in 1906 with his parents. He grew up and married and lived at 409 Boyd Avenue, at the corner of Boyd and Salter Street. Wolchock wasn’t a gangster, but he sold to them. Leonard believes his father likely dealt with Kid Cann in the Twin Cities, who ran the illegal liquor business there. “My dad did a lot of business in St. Paul,” said Leonard.
Most of what Leonard knows about his dad’s business was told to him by friends and associates of his dad. His father followed the code of the day and kept his business and home separate. Wolchock had a simple rule for his son if people should ask about his work: he would press his index finger to his lips.
While at Assiniboia Downs a man once approached Leonard and said he knew his dad. This sort of thing happened a lot in Leonard’s life because he resembled his dad.
“The guy was a railroader,” Leonard related. “He said, ‘I knew your dad. We stole a train for him once. I said, ‘Get out of here.’ He said, ‘Listen, your dad said he had a big shipment going to Chicago that he couldn’t deliver by car. I told him, ‘Don’t worry, Bill.’ The man said a crew of four, including a brakeman, pulled an engine and three box cars over at Bergen cut-off and loaded them with alcohol. The alcohol, when it went by rail, was shipped in 45 gallon drums. Somewhere along the track, the railway men switched the cars over to the Soo Line track that went to Chicago. When the payoff came, Wolchock showed up at a secret location and dished out $100 bills like playing cards to the railroaders.
The Bronfman family knew about Wolchock and Wolchock, of course, knew about them. Wolchock was friendly with the Bronfman brother-in-law, Paul Matoff, who ran Bronfman stores in Carduff, Gainsborough, and Bienfait, Saskatchewan where he sold whiskey to American rumrunners. On October 4th, 1922, Matoff took payment from a North Dakota bootlegger. Shortly after a 12-gauge shotgun blast killed him instantly in the railway station. The murder was never solved.
“Matoff told my dad, ‘Bill, your market is in the States,’” said Leonard.
Another time a friend of Wolchock Sr., nicknamed Tubby, took Leonard aside. They bumped into each other at the hospital, where Wolchock was dying. “Tubby said he and his brother had a truck, and one day my dad called and asked if they had a tarp for the truck. They said, yeah, so dad said, “Go to such and such place, back up your truck, don’t get out, don’t look in the mirror, don’t do nothing. Someone will put something in your truck. Then go to this address and do the same. Don’t get out, don’t look in your rearview mirror, don’t do nothing.’ That’s how business was done.”
Wolchock was always a sharp dresser and wore suits and long overcoats. His shirts were specially made by Maurice Rothschild’s in Minneapolis and monogrammed AWW across the pocket. His suits were made in the Abe Palay tailor shop that used to be on Garry Street across from the old Garrick Theater. “My dad wore a fedora because he was bald,” said Leonard. One of Wolchock‘s favourite hangouts was the Russian Steam Baths on Dufferin Avenue, where he went Wednesdays and Saturdays.
When that closed, he and his bootleg pals went to Obee’s Steam Baths on McGregor near Pritchard.
Wolchock had a chain of people with various trades and skills on the payroll and always paid well. For example, he had agreements with several tinsmiths to make him the gallon cans to put the alcohol in when it was being smuggled by car.
One tinsmith told Leonard he used to make $200-$400 per week moonlighting for his father. He earned $30 a week on his day job as a tinsmith.
The gallon cans would be put in jute bags and tossed in the back of a car. The drivers would go across the border at small town points like Tolstoi and Gretna.
Border security back then wasn’t like it is today.
Wolchock couldn’t buy anything in bulk, like the sugar to make the alcohol or the cans to put the liquor into, because it would attract too much attention. So he had deals all over the place. He had a deal with a major local bakery, which used to have a central bakery and stores around Winnipeg, to supply him the sugar. He also had a deal with a bakery out on the West Coast.
Wolchock even had deals with hog farmers to get rid of the mash from alcohol production, which makes an excellent feedstuff for livestock. He had drivers and sales agents. He had a chemist on the payroll.
Wolchock also had two or three henchmen. They carried guns in shoulder holsters and hung around the family, but they were the only business associates that ever came to the house. “My dad lived a normal life. We sat and listened to hockey games, but he had strong-armed men around if there was any trouble,” Leonard recalled.
“My dad wasn’t a run-around,” said Leonard. “He was a family man. He was home for lunch and dinner all the time.”
Wolchock also had a friend highly placed with the federal excise office in Winnipeg. His name cannot be revealed here. He also had a highranking local bank official who helped him, but Leonard also doesn’t know in what way. Wolchock once gave his sister $30,000 to deposit in a bank, but that’s all Leonard knows about the transaction. Later in life, Leonard once asked the banker, a big gruff man who always smoked a cigar, what his arrangement was with his father. “None of your f-ing business,” the banker snapped.
One of the problems for Wolchock was where to put the money. He made piles of money, but he couldn’t deposit it in the bank like everyone else because he couldn’t explain to authorities how he made it. Leonard thinks he stashed it, but doesn’t know where. While the family didn’t live ostentatiously, perhaps because that would have attracted attention, they always had money at a time when most people didn’t. “People were dirt poor. There was no money around,” said Leonard. All four of Wolchock ‘s sons received vehicles when they were old enough to drive and all would later get houses when they left home.
One of Wolchock’s hobbies was collecting racehorses with names like Dark Wonder, Sun Trysts, Let’s Pretend. “My dad had a stable of horses in the early days to just get rid of the money,” said Leonard. Leonard’s mother Rose used to travel to watch the horses race at major racetracks in California and Hastings Park in Vancouver. Other enterprises Wolchock invested in included buying a ladies’ garment factory and the Sylvia Hotel in Vancouver. Leonard believes his father may have been a millionaire by the time he married Rose in 1927. Leonard was born the next year. “My mother’s family was poor. Dad gave them lots of money. He paid for everything. Money was of no consequence.”
His parents regularly took vacations in Hot Springs, Arkansas, which was sort of a racketeer tourist destination at the time, with legal gambling introduced thanks to gangster Meyer Lansky. It also had bath houses with natural hot springs. For some reason, racketeers had a thing for steam baths and hot springs.
Leonard claims – and insists it’s true – that his father would carry around $15,000 on him all the time. He once walked into a car dealership on Portage Avenue where McNaught Motors is now and bought a Cadillac on the spot with cash. “I never saw my dad with a wallet. All he had was a roll of bills with an elastic around it.”
Everything was in cash. For his bootlegging business Wolchock would buy six to eight cars at a time for his rumrunners to transport booze. He bought the cars at two Winnipeg dealerships where he had business relations. The first thing he always did with the new cars was tear out the backseat so he could fit in more alcohol. The stable of cars was parked inside a St. Boniface service garage. The runners had access day and night, mostly night. They sometimes went all the way to destinations like St. Paul, but usually they would just cross the border and unload into a shuttle car driven by an American rumrunner.
Wolchock and his merry men were a crosssection of Manitoba nationalities and religious origins in the 1920s. Wolchock was Jewish, and his cohorts were a mix of Poles, Frenchmen, Scotsmen, Ukrainians, Jews, Mennonite farmers near Steinbach, and Belgians – “a lot of Belgians,” Leonard said.
Leonard doesn’t know exactly how many people it took to run a still, maybe eight for the larger ones. When RCMP busted Wolchock‘s large still on Logan Avenue in 1936, it was the largest still ever found in Manitoba. Its operations extended to all four floors and into the basement, according to the Manitoba Free Press. The building also had an office, two vehicles and living quarters on the third floor. Employees gained entrance to the living quarters through a crawl space. In the living quarters were bunk beds and cooking equipment and books. The building was empty when police raided it. No charges were laid. The building was owned by the city from a tax sale.
Even after Prohibition ended and liquor was legal, it was government-controlled in Canada, so good money could still be made in bootlegging. The Bronfmans had managed the tricky business from illegal bootlegger to legal distiller, but not Wolchock. Like most law breakers, he didn’t quit while he was ahead.
RCMP finally charged Wolchock after customer Howard Gimble of Minneapolis got caught and ratted on him. Gimble was the key witness against Wolchock. The Manitoba Free Press reported that RCMP had tried been trying to nail Wolchock for years before Gimble gave them their break.
The charge was conspiring to defraud the federal government out of income tax moneys on liquor sales. The RCMP claimed he defrauded the government of $125,000, but that that was just a figure plucked out of the air, based on the scale of operation from a single portable still. The jury was locked up for the 10-day trial because of previous suspicions of jury tampering. Gimble told the court Wolchock had a portable still he moved from farm to farm near Winnipeg. RCMP found the still on Paul Demark’s farm in Prairie Grove, now a bedroom community at the end of Ste. Anne’s Road, just past the Winnipeg perimeter. But Gimble told the court Wolchock also used the still on the farm of Abraham Toews near Ste. Anne on Dave Letkeman’s farm just southeast of Steinbach, and in Jay Kehler’s barn one mile west of Steinbach. Court was also shown pictures of warehouses and buildings around Winnipeg, including St. Boniface, used in Wolchock ‘s illegal liquor business. Gimble also alleged Wolchock operated another still on a farm near Stonewall. He said it produced five thousands of gallons of alcohol that summer of 1940.
Wolchock and seven of his partners were convicted, but it took three trials. The first trial was declared a mistrial due to suspicion of jury tampering. In the second trial proceedings were halted when Wolchock required a hernia operation. Finally, he was sent to jail.
He got five years in Stony Mountain Penitentiary, and that was before there was such a thing as parole. It is the most severe sentence ever laid in Manitoba history for a liquor offense. Up to that point in March of 1940, no one had received more than an eight-month sentence for liquor offenses in Manitoba. Also convicted and sentenced were Ned Balakowski, three years; Ben Balakowski, eight months; Frank McGirl, eight months; Jules Mourant, one year. Sam Arborg, Eugene Mourant, and Cass Morant each received suspended sentences.
After serving his time, Wolchock remembered the people who helped him in prison. A prison guard at Stony Mountain named Mr. Anderson was always kind to Wolchock. When Wolchock finished his prison term, Leonard was sent out every Christmas over to the Anderson household to deliver food and presents.
Wolchock Sr. also gave generously to the Salvation Army. “He was a great guy to the Salvation Army because the Sally Ann was very good to him in jail,” said Leonard. His father also saw to it that Leonard took Jewish dishes to the Jewish prisoners in Stony Mountain on the high holidays.
He had money left when he got out of jail but the cost of lawyers for three trials drained a lot of it. Wolchock paid everybody’s legal fees. His wife Rose managed their family of four young boys while he was in prison for five years, and Wolchock, when he got out, bought the home then called Bardal Estate, formerly owned by Winnipeg Funeral Director Neil Bardal. It’s a large clapboard house at the end of Hawthorne Avenue in North Kildonan, along the river on what is now named Kildonan Drive. “There was a fireplace in every bedroom,” Leonard recalled. Wolchock also had money to buy a little company, Canadian Wreckage and Salvage.
But the money wasn’t anything like he was used to and, after a couple years, Wolchock called his old mates together for a meeting. He wanted to make one last batch. Who was in? So the men walled off a portion of the Bardal’s home basement. Two of Wolchock’s close friends were bricklayers – and they constructed a still behind the wall. There were no neighbors on Kildonan Drive at the time, so there was no one to detect the smell from alcohol production. The men made the alcohol, distributed to people they could trust, and dismantled the operation. Then they rode off into the sunset.
“The old man had a bundle of money and he dished out to everyone. Louis went to Sudbury and got a 7-Up franchise; Charlie went to California and bought a liquor store; Benny G bought a trucking company; Benny B moved to Vancouver; Ned went back to work.” There were others involved, but Leonard doesn’t know what became of them. Other partners had already taken their money and invested before the RCMP arrest: Johnny B moved to Vancouver and bought a furniture store; Fred S bought a retail fish store in Winnipeg that still exists today under different owners; another partner went into the hotel business.
And Wolchock? “My dad started Capital Lumber at 92 Higgins Avenue with a partner,” said Leonard. “He didn’t make money like in the past, but he still called the shots and had a successful little business.”
That was Prohibition.
“There was honour among men. Back then, your word was your bond. Nothing was written down. Everything was a handshake,” said Leonard.
“My dad came to this country and he always called it the land of milk and honey. He always said that. He said it after he got out of prison, too. He was never bitter.”
Archibald William Wolchock died in 1976 at age 78.
Features
Part 9 of the delusional Winnipeg con man: His phoney promises to fund a charitable foundation in Africa lead one trusting individual to contemplate suicide
By BERNIE BELLAN This is the ninth part of a story about a delusional Winnipegger who believes he is someone of great wealth and has spent the better part of 30 years contacting people all over the world telling them that he wants to invest in their businesses or projects. The first eight parts of this story are all available to read under the FEATURES category on this website.
Here is part 9 of my story:
Of all the deceptions in which Fred Devlin engaged over the years, arguably the one that inflicted the most damage was on the man I’ve been calling Charlie, who lives in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
As I’ve explained, that initial email which I received on January 16, 2026 was supposedly sent by Charlie (whose real name sounded much more African than that). While I was impressed by the quality of writing that went into that email and responded to it immediately it came as a surprise to me that the follow-up email which I received did not come from Charlie. Instead it came from the man I’ve been calling Rick.
Why was Charlie’s name being used as the author of an email whose contents were so explosive if, in fact, it was someone else entirely who had written that email?
I’m still not sure of the answer to that question. Clearly Rick had his own reasons for not attaching his name to that January 16 email, but when I finally did hear from Charlie it wasn’t until March 7 – and what he wrote was so plaintive that I was prompted to send him some money.
Here is the line of communication that began between Charlie and me – and which is still ongoing as I write this:
emails between Charlie and me sent on March 7, 2026
Hi Bernie, I’d like to kill myself and leave a note, because I’ve got a bad reputation now because of Fred. Next week I have to pay $1200. Fred told me to borrow it and start a charity he was going to fund on January 25th, but so far he hasn’t done anything; it seems like he forgot. I need to find this money and I don’t know how. I’m considering suicide because I have no other options.
Thank you.
Hi Charlie,
To whom do you owe the money?
Bernie
He’s the owner of a cooperative and savings association, and luckily he knows Fred too, because he gave me that money in two installments. Fred also emailed him asking about the banking procedures for transferring the money from Luxembourg. He also knows Fred. He owns this association. He gave me that money because he saw Fred on the video call and it was Fred speaking. But at some point, Fred denied it; we have all the evidence.
Fred said he was going to put down $450,000 or $300,000 in January to start the projects. Everyone in my town knows this story, and everyone is a witness.
Charlie
Did the fellow who gave you the money make you sign something?
Bernie
Yes, he did
He gave us 1000 dollars, and we have give him 1200$.
Charlie
I don’t understand. This fellow gave you $1,000 but you’ve given him $1200. Do you mean that you owe him $1200?
Bernie
Yes, the $200 is for his benefit. If you borrow $500, you have to repay $600. If you take out a loan of $1000, you’ll repay $1200. I owe him $1200. And besides, we wanted to take out a loan of $3000, but I had my doubts. I’d like to kill myself because I’ve lost my reputation. Fred even sent me to the leaders of my town, telling them he was going to improve living conditions here and create many jobs, telling them he was going to implement “Congo Improvement Projects.”
Charlie
Maybe I can negotiate a deal with this guy that you owe money to. What if I offer to pay him $500? Will he let you off the hook? $1200 is a lot of money.
Bernie
If you could help me by just paying him $600, that would be great because he can give me another three months. And I can also arrange to pay in installments. But it will depend on your availability. I really thank you so much.
Charlie
Before I agree to send any money I want to see something in writing from the guy you borrowed from promising that he will give you another 3 months to repay the other $600.
Bernie
That’s a good idea, we can thank you because you just saved my life. I’ll do it, but on Monday. Because tomorrow I can just tell him this and complete the document. Once we receive the money, that’s how we can sign. But also, here our official language is French. The document will be written in French.
Charlie
By the way – I’m Canadian. Our dollar is worth far less than an American dollar. I will only give $600 Cdn.
But you’re going to have to tell me more about how you got involved with Fred.
Bernie
Fred had contacted me alone since 2020. He told me he was a businessman with an organization called Xanadu Charitable Foundation which he wanted to establish in Africa, and that I would be the future project manager, but first and foremost, I had to be a volunteer, and I agreed to that. My story is very long; I’ll gather all the evidence tomorrow and send it to you.
I have several documents that Fred sent me, letters of recommendation to show to the leaders of my city. I have everything, and Fred himself knows this. Try asking for it; he can’t refuse because he knows I have all the evidence.
Charlie
emails sent March 8
Hi Bernie, I was talking to Rick. He told me to send more emails about Fred’s situation. I told him I’m waiting until we can finalize things with you, or until he tells you first. I’ve already promised the landlord I owe him half this week, and we’re going to complete the paperwork with him tomorrow. But right now I’m completely overwhelmed; I don’t know what’s going on anymore. You said you don’t really know my story? But I wrote it to you a long time ago. (Charlie is referring here to the January 16 email. For some reason he was still maintaining the pretense that he wrote that email.) Double-check your emails. And if you have any questions, you can ask me.
Charlie
Yes, I read your story, but it doesn’t tell me how Fred found you. I want to know exactly what you did when Fred contacted you.
I also want to see something in writing that shows what Fred promised you.
Finally, I want to know the same thing I’ve asked everyone else: Did you ever do anything to check out whether what Fred was telling you bore any relation to reality?
All that I’ve heard from everyone I’ve talked to is how convincing Fred was. Am I the only person who’s met Fred who realized early on he was full of shit?
Bernie
At my age, it wasn’t easy not to believe an older person like Fred. The evidence and documents I have are, firstly, the confidential agreement he had me sign, and secondly, a letter of reference he gave me to show to the leaders of my city so they could investigate, telling them he was going to build here. I even managed to print t-shirts for his organization with my own money, and one day, I even managed to feed 250 orphaned children in Fred’s name. The promises are in our conversations, and sometimes we had video conferences with him. I’m not here to smear him because I respect him greatly; I’m here to tell the truth. I have screenshots, images, and documents to prove all of this.
Charlie
Charlie, I’ve got to know who wrote that original email I received from you on January 16. Was it Rick? If so, why didn’t he send it himself? Why did it come from you?
Bernie
For the first time, Fred sent me a Messenger invitation. After I accepted, he told me I was lucky and that God loved me very much because I had just met a great person and the owner of a large organization called Xanadu, A few days later, he told me I would be Xanadu’s future representative in Congo. I was surprised too, and I immediately checked his profile. I found he was real, even though I still had some doubts until we started video calls for conferences. We continued our discussions for a year. Afterward, he told me I had to work hard to get the representative position. He suggested I volunteer to gain experience. I was easily convinced because during our video calls, he was always sitting in a luxurious office with computers. I couldn’t have any more doubts. And that’s where it all began.
Charlie
email received from Charlie March 9
Hello Bernie, I acknowledge my mistake in not realizing Fred was mentally ill. It was difficult for us not to believe him because during video conferences he seemed serious. I was right because he always made promises he never kept. He also told me he had meetings with Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu. I also wonder how someone who talks to these adults can have the time to talk to me.
Regarding the names of the people I know that Fred told me he spoke to about his businesses, I suspect he defrauded and lied to.
Charlie
On March 11 I sent Charlie $600 Cdn. It wasn’t easy completing that transaction. In fact, I attempted to send the money several times through different methods. I finally settled on using something called Remitly, but I had to have a phone number for Charlie. It turned out that he gave me the phone number for a friend who is registered with Remitly. When I entered Charlie’s name as the recipient, however, the transaction didn’t go through – and it took me some time to get the money back into my bank account. I was quite upset with Charlie over his not telling me that the phone number he gave me wasn’t his – but in the end I was able to send the money to him successfully – after I changed the name of the recipient to his friend’s name.
emails sent March 12
Hi Bernie, I’m writing to you to thank you for everything you’ve done for me. I only recently met you, but you helped me with problems that weren’t yours. I’ve never met someone as kind-hearted as you. You’ve sacrificed so much for me; you’re so kind and understanding, like a parent to me. I handed over the money today, and I’ve been granted another three months. I’m looking for a job, and if I find one, I hope I can finish the rest on my own.
I have a report I’m going to send you. It’s a report from the field trip I did across the entire country. Fred told me he was going to implement a project here called the “Congo Improvement Project.” He told me to identify the problems facing Congo and propose solutions. It was work I did with all my heart, but in the end, Fred was always there to betray me. The report is 33 pages long. It’s work I myself greatly appreciated. Right now, it’s become a real obstacle for me because I used Fred as a reference on all my CVs, and no one can trust me anymore because I defended him so much here. I said he was a good and genuine person. I deeply regret my life. Fred has just destroyed it.
Charlie
Hey Charlie,
I was glad to help. Your story was one of the worst I heard of all the people Fred sucked into his orbit. I’m still wrestling with how I should write this story. Your part of the story is especially poignant because you actually put out money that you didn’t have – all in pursuit of a worthy project that was intended only to help people.
I consider myself very lucky in that I was born and grew up in a great country like Canada. I’ve done okay financially but my no means am I rich. Still, I contribute a lot to charity. Helping out someone like you is all part and parcel of the same thing as far as I’m concerned. And just because it was difficult getting you the money – and I got upset with you a couple of times – doesn’t mean I won’t help you again. If you find it a real struggle paying off the rest of what you owe let me know. I’m prepared to help more if necessary.
-Bernie
email from Charlie March 14
I understand, Bernie. Luckily, you understood everything. What Fred did to me will hurt me for the rest of my life. Here, several people keep asking me, “When are you going to implement the project with Fred?” I always feel ashamed everywhere.
Charlie
email from Charlie March 17
Hi Bernie, I hope you’re doing well. I received some annoying messages from Rick. He told me he doesn’t believe in anyone anymore, and that we’re all corrupt. I didn’t reply because I didn’t understand. I can’t threaten anyone; I can only respect what’s in order. Personally, I wanted to write a long letter and then kill myself. I didn’t need to bother anyone or say too much. I was really surprised to see his messages saying we’re corrupt.
Charlie
emails sent March 18
Just ignore him Charlie. I don’t really know him but from what he’s written to me lately he’s clearly not well.
Bernie
Thank you so much for your advice. This time Fred isn’t calling me anymore. He did call me once, offering me money for a small project to calm me down, but I knew it was just a scam. In the next two weeks, I’m going to explain Fred’s story to the people in my town, because many people are waiting for funding from him and they don’t know what happened. In the meantime, I’m waiting for a job here. If it works out, everything will be fine, but if it doesn’t, I’ll still be in a bad situation.
Charlie
The fact Fred has stopped calling you could mean one of two things: Either he is at times aware of his behaviour and can control it for periods of time or more likely, there are people closely monitoring him now and trying to keep him from continuing his delusional behaviour online. I’d be curious to see whether he continues to leave you alone. Keep me posted and of course I hope things work out for you.
Bernie
Maybe.
Do you know why I wanted to kill myself? It’s because I sang (?) Fred a lot here in my town. We were promised great leaders that we would create jobs here, but now everyone sees me as a liar, nobody believes me anymore, everyone says I’m a scammer too. It’s difficult for me, that’s why I’m desperate.
Charlie
Well, if you need to show people something that will prove you never intended to mislead anyone I’ve been writing a story about what Fred Devlin has done – and is continuing to do. I’ve finished the first 4 chapters and you’re welcome to read it if you like – and share with anyone who is angry at you. Of course, it’s in English but I can try to translate it using AI.
Bernie
emails from Charlie March 19
The big problem is that Africans think that a crazy white person, a scammer white person, and a poor white person don’t exist; it’s difficult to convince them. Africans think that white people are perfect.
Charlie
Hi Bernie, I tried to sit down with my father and some of the elders in my town who know Freds story well. Because I’m the son of a reverend pastor, and Fred had promised my father he would build him a church. Now I’ve made them understand that Fred is a con artist; he also has a mental problem. I apologized to them. They told me it wasn’t possible, but in the end they understood, though they were very surprised to hear it. My father cried. The elders in my town told me I must be in cahoots with Fred and that maybe I’m the con artist. They asked me about the money I borrowed, and I told them I’m paying it back myself. They asked me how I met him and advised me not to trust people anymore.
Charlie
emails sent March 20
Well, you can tell them that there’s at least one white guy out there who’s nice, who believes in you, has helped you and is doing everything he can to stop Fred Devlin from making your life and other people’s lives miserable.
Bernie
Thank you so much, Bernie. They also have some questions, asking me how I had the courage to sacrifice myself like that for someone like Fred. Bernie, maybe you only know the debt I owe because of Fred, but you don’t know the story behind me, and that’s why I wanted to kill myself. For my part, I can only thank you for giving me hope for life again. But here at home, no one can believe in me anymore. I can’t leave my city, I can’t work here except start a business because everyone knows I’m waiting for funding from Fred. I’d also like to ask you a question out of curiosity: do you have any people here in Africa? Do you know Africa? Have you ever been to Africa?
Charlie
emails sent March 21
Sorry Charlie – I don’t know anyone in Africa except some people in South Africa – and I don’t really know them. I just have a good friend who’s from South Africa who still has lots of friends and relatives there and he’s introduced me to some of them online.
I don’t understand how the people in your home town still believe that Fred is going to provide you with funding. How much proof do they need to understand he’s a very sick person and nothing he has ever said is real?
Do you want me to send you what I’ve written for my story so far? I supposed you could translate it into French if necessary. Maybe then people would understand how crazy Fred is.
Bernie
Hi Bernie, I was with another team today, some of the people Fred had promised to start with me. I tried to explain things to them, and they understood, even though it wasn’t easy for them. Tomorrow I have a general meeting with them and some of the leaders here. I can even send you the photos tomorrow. Despite everything, it’s very embarrassing for me; no one believes me anymore. Some even tell me they’ll never trust me again.
I’m hated in my community now. How can I continue living this life with a bad reputation? Bernie, if you ever stop seeing my messages, know that I’m no longer in this world. It’s not easy being hated by your community; you can’t buy a reputation, it’s earned through your actions. Goodbye.
Charlie
Charlie – don’t lose hope and please don’t think of killing yourself. Of course I understand what a difficult situation you are in. Is there anyone in your town that I could speak to to try to tell them that you were just an innocent victim of a very sick person – who also victimized many other people? What would it take for your reputation to be reburnished?
Bernie
Bernie, I’m African, but somewhat civilized. I know Africans well, which is why I don’t want to put you in contact, because he’ll only ask for money. The only solution is to change my environment. When I pay off this debt, I’m just going to move far away from here. Otherwise, I risk getting stressed. I’m waiting for tomorrow’s meeting, and then I’ll tell you what happens next.
Charlie
emails sent March 24
Hi Bernie, I have a long letter to write to you today because I had a big meeting with everyone who knows Fred because of me. But first of all, I apologize if this is going to bother you. By the way, I wanted to show you the plaque that a village chief made for Fred, because Fred promised he would arrive here in 2023. He also asked me how Fred is doing.
Charlie
I hope your people listen to you & understand how you were completely fooled by Fred.
Bernie
Yes, only the wise ones understood. The others say that if I didn’t take the money, it means I was Fred’s accomplice. The others say they’re going to file a complaint against me. The others understood. Here, where I come from, promising an orphanage and not keeping that promise is a great sin; it’s taboo here. But I don’t see my future in this city. I have a bad reputation right now.
Charlie
On March 26 I wrote to Charlie that the lawyer I had contacted about taking on Jonathan as a client had told me that he had asked the head of civiil litigation at his firm to get in touch with me. I also told the lawyer that there was someone else who had been very badly hurt by having been duped by Fred Devlin – but that this poor fellow lived in Africa. I said that I really hoped a lawsuit could proceed so that Fred Devlin’s parents might finally take steps to harness their delusional son and keep him from contacting anyone ever again with a promise to invest in a project with that person.
I sent Charlie a copy of what I had written for this story to that point.
He responded: Thank you so much, Bernie. I just translated and read part of it. Congratulations on what you’re doing; you’re a true writer. Fred called me 10 minutes ago saying he wants to work with me, but fortunately, I ignored him.
Charlie
Can you keep a record of every time he calls you and I hope you keep all messages he sent you.
Bernie
Yes, I keep just messages and mails
Charlie
ok that’s good. Do you think you could send some to me – not all of them, just ones where he promises he’s going to fund the charitable foundation he wanted you to set up. I want to use them in my story – with the names changed of course.
Bernie
But he did a lot of things via video calls and other things in writing.
Charlie
emails sent March 27
I don’t know that anything I would do would make any difference, but I’d like to have as much written material as possible for what I’m writing.
Obviously, you can’t send me videos or memories of conversations.
Bernie
I have a lot of evidence and documents because I have a Xanadu folder on my computer with everything. Unfortunately, I gave my computer as collateral to the person I owe, so I can only use some of the evidence on my phone. Fred is asking me how much money I want to give him back his website because it contains all the information about him and who he claimed to be. He’s afraid I might reveal it.
Charlie
Charlie sends me a screenshot of a text message sent from Fred to Charlie:
“Your land, your house, your pharmacy your phone your books, computer and your future revenue. You sided with my enemies and will legally lose everthing.”
March 28 Charlie sends me another screenshot of a text message from Fred to him:
“I have hired lawyers to take all your life’s assets. You have until 12noon Central time to take down internet slander and apologize on facebook.
“You have assisted in publicly attempting to lie and ruin my reputation.
“If you decide to lie about our good relationship my family and I will sue you. If you continue to slander my reputation you will be sued. You better take down the slander sites immediately.”
emails sent March 28
Bernie, as I told you long ago, I’m not here to smear Fred, but to tell the truth. I wanted to commit suicide because I’m worthless in my community because of him. I have all the testimonies, as well as witnesses who know my story with Fred well. There are even documents he sent me to show the leaders of my town, showing him that he was going to implement several projects here. Since I needed a job in the future, I was always obedient to him because I had no choice. I printed t-shirts, I bought food to feed 300 orphans twice a year in Xanadu’s name, and Fred congratulated me, telling me I was the best. He lied to my father, saying he was going to build his church because my father is a reverend pastor. I have a lot of evidence that proves everything. He told me to spend what I have to buy hectares of land he was going to finance in January, but so far he hasn’t done anything except deceive me. He was video conferencing with several people from my village using my phone, telling them he was going to finance it in January. Now everyone in my community is against me. If you talk about Fred or Xanadu, they might kill you. I deleted all my posts about Xanadu and burned the knitting (?) too. Right now, Fred is threatening to destroy me.
Charlie
Can you forward me actual messages showing that they were from Fred? Someone could say that you wrote these messages yourself.
Bernie
Hello Bernie, Fred spent all night threatening to kill me, saying he’s going to take everything I have spiritually, and that anyone I work with will hate me. He said he can’t help me with anything anymore and that I’ll be back to square one. For my part, I’d like to take my time and write at least 5 or 6 pages about my story with Fred, because right now I’m still saddened by what he keeps saying. He writes things and sometimes deletes them; luckily, I’m taking screenshots. Sometimes he calls me and insults me. He told me if I publish his website where all his information is, I’ll die and he’ll kill me spiritually.
Charlie
Also, on March 20, Charlie began sending me messages on WhatAapp in addition to emailing me.
His first message was: Good morning Bernie. I’m Charlie. I asked you for your WhatsApp number because that’s where I can easily send you several pieces of evidence and that’s where I always communicate.
Attached to Charlie’s message were several images, most of which were indecipherable, but two of which showed Charlie – one with a group of kids from his community who, I assume, were to be beneficiaries of the charitable foundation Charlie was going to create – using money from Fred Devlin’s Xanadu Foundation. The other photo was of Charlie meeting with women from his community. From one of his previous emails I surmise that he was trying to explain to them that he had been duped by Devlin.
Also attached to Charlie’s WhatsApp message was a message from “David Simkin,” the supposed CEO of the Xanadu Group of Companies. It’s particularly galling that within Devlin’s enormous delusion he actually would have gone so far as to create a fictitious character who became part of his story – and whose name was used to add a patina of respectability to what was utter nonsense.
Sequel to Charlie’s story: I eventually sent Charlie another $800 so that he could pay off the rest of the debt he had incurred by having t-shirts made with the charitable foundation logo on the front, along with food that he bought for 300 orphans in his community.
I’ve remained in touch with Charlie, who tells me how difficult it is for him to find work in Africa, even though he’s highly educated and speaks seven different languages. The immense toll that being strung along by Fred Devlin for years will never be ameliorated.
Coming next: I receive a surprise phone call from the man I’ve been calling Fred Devlin, who asks to meet with me. I end up confronting him over all the cons he’s been pulling.
Features
BOOK REVIEW: “Fighting the Hate: A Handbook for Jews Under Siege”
Reviewed by MURRAY BENDER “Thinking on your feet”—quickly defending a position in a coherent, persuasive manner—is a situation that many people find challenging and stressful. “If only I had said this.” or “Why didn’t I say that?” Hindsight is always 20-20.
Following the Hamas atrocities of October 7, 2023, it has become increasingly necessary for diaspora Jews to “think on their feet” as they unwittingly face a barrage of tough, sometimes hateful, questions about Jews and their Israeli homeland.
Why is Israel committing genocide in Gaza? Why doesn’t Israel return the land it has stolen from Palestinians? Why are Israeli settlers attacking Palestinian farmers? How is Israel different from apartheid South Africa? Why can’t I criticize Israel without being called antisemitic? Is it true that Jews control the world? The list of potential questions is nearly endless.
Engage or hide? This is the difficult choice that confronts Jews as they look to deal with anti-Jewish and anti-Israeli behaviour. Fortunately, author and journalist Melanie Phillips comes to the rescue with her practical and insightful book, Fighting the Hate: A Handbook for Jews Under Siege.
According to Phillips, the dilemma has no single answer. “People need to decide how to behave in accordance not just with the specific circumstances but also with their own attributes and limitations.”
Some regard engagement with their opponents as a sacred duty. “They believe it is a betrayal of the Jewish people not to uphold Israel’s case.” Ohers may be uncomfortable with such a direct approach, but “those who decide to keep their heads down and avoid any altercation may well find that this leaves them with a permanent sense of regret and even failure,” she says.
As a result, it’s probably a good idea to adopt some sort of balance. And that’s where Phillips’ 150-page handbook comes in.
She starts by providing context around the “crisis of legitimacy and acceptance” from which Jews are reeling post-October 7. On the basis of extensive conversations with Jews from across the U.S., Britain and Australia, the author found that many “were near stupefied by the terrifying hatred and irrationality that was unfolding around them.” Again and again, they asked: “What should we do? What can we do?”
In response, Phillips offers a pragmatic approach to help prepare for the inevitable conversations, including a number of key principles:
- Get smart rather than emotional
- Stop playing defence
- Find common ground
- Be positive and confident
- Keep physically safe
Based on these overarching criteria, she provides an extensive list of quick and clever retorts to a range of different situations, emphasizing that “it’s our duty to our children and grandchildren to fight for truth and justice.”
So, the next time it is necessary to “think on their feet,” diaspora Jews will be able to respond quickly and confidently to those difficult questions about themselves and Israel. And they can thank Melanie Phillips for coming to the rescue.
Fighting the Hate: A Handbook for Jews Under Siege by Melanie Phillips is available online from Amazon and Indigo.
Features
ESports Meets Casinos: Overview of Bet Sport Gaming
ESports has become part of the interactive entertainment of online casinos. In fact, many fans already have the opportunity to use Dragonia Casino Bet Sport options while watching the matches of their favorite teams. The hybrid entertainment model opens up many possibilities and increases audience engagement. When video games intersect with betting, it creates a unique collaboration where participants have the opportunity to get a completely new experience right in their own home. At the same time, you can continue to enjoy the usual viewing of familiar tournaments and competitions.
How ESports and Casinos Interconnect
ESports has become a multi-billion-dollar industry that attracts spectators. Traditional casinos are focused on luck. But now they are introducing additional methods of encouraging their customers. Among such options, eSports events deserve special attention. Such bet sport offers combine the usual excitement with an element of competition. The structure of the casino entertainment provides participants with the opportunity to test their skills and reveal their own hidden talents. There are several forms of integration of eSports mechanics into the structure of a classic online casino:
- Competitive betting. Online casinos provide the opportunity to bet on eSports tournaments, which is similar to the usual sports betting. In addition, the possibilities are significantly expanded compared to simple viewing platforms.
- Skill-based casino games. Games inspired by eSports encourage players to actively participate in what is happening on the screen. The games reward the player’s results with certain prizes.
- Interactive arenas. Some casinos broadcast eSports events in real time. This allows players to follow the games directly online, which creates a feeling of real participation in familiar entertainment.
- Cross-platform interaction. Online casinos are introducing eSports-style leaderboards and achievements to attract more participants.
Such innovations appeal to new participants. Cultural changes are part of the development of the infrastructure of the classic casino, and eSports fans find a new environment for entertainment and communication.
Growth of ESports Betting
Global eSports revenue in 2025 exceeded $1.5 billion. Each bet sport option has made a significant contribution to the development. Surveys show that over 60% of players will express interest in betting on eSports, which reflects the demand and the need to develop an updated infrastructure for participation.
ESports events attract 15-20% more new participants compared to conventional casinos. The eSports betting market will exceed $20 billion by 2027, according to analysts’ forecasts, which encourages new participants to more actively watch tournaments and participate in various types of activity.
Why Fans Choose ESports
Bet sport gambling is gaining popularity. This is due to several reasons. For example, large casinos in Las Vegas and Macau now host full-fledged eSports tournaments alongside traditional entertainment. Venues are also experimenting with separate fan zones where sports betting and classic gambling are available.
Some of the most popular eSports disciplines are League of Legends and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Some online casinos even introduce eSports mechanics into slots so that players can try something new.
In short, the intersection of eSports and casinos is a natural development of the industry. Competitive play and an optimized betting system create a comfortable environment for true fans who want to diversify their leisure time.