Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A place for gambling by betting on the drawing of certain numbers in a lottery.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • The police, meanwhile, who had bought appointment or promotion, and the politicians back of them, extended the blackmailing to include about everything from the pushcart peddler and the big or small merchant who wished to use the sidewalk illegally for his goods, up to the keepers of the brothel, the gambling-house, and the policy-shop.

    VI. The New York Police 1913

  • The police, meanwhile, who had bought appointment or promotion, and the politicians back of them, extended the blackmailing to include about everything from the pushcart peddler and the big or small merchant who wished to use the sidewalk illegally for his goods, up to the keepers of the brothel, the gambling-house, and the policy-shop.

    An Autobiography Roosevelt, Theodore 1913

  • The police, meanwhile, who had bought appointment or promotion, and the politicians back of them, extended the blackmailing to include about everything from the pushcart peddler and the big or small merchant who wished to use the sidewalk illegally for his goods, up to the keepers of the brothel, the gambling-house, and the policy-shop.

    Theodore Roosevelt; an Autobiography Theodore Roosevelt 1888

  • I had simply got my check cashed every week in a cigar-store next door that was known to be a policy-shop for the special accommodation of Police Headquarters in those days, and the check had gone straight into the "backer's" bank-account.

    Children of the Tenements 1881

  • From the policy-shop she went back to the whisky-shop, and took another drink.

    Cast Adrift 1847

  • She changed from one policy-shop to another, hoping for better luck.

    Cast Adrift 1847

  • From the whisky-shop to the policy-shop went Mother Hewitt.

    Cast Adrift 1847

  • Their hunger only grew as they fed, until they blackmailed everything in sight, from the push-cart peddler in the street, who had bought his license to sell, but was clubbed from post to post until he “gave up, ” to the brothel, the gambling-house, and the policy-shop, for which they had regular rates: so much for “initiation” every time a new captain came to the precinct, and so much per month for permission to run.

    VI. In Mulberry Street 1904

  • -- for a "policy-shop" is simply a robbery shop, and is so regarded by the law, which sets a penalty upon the "writer" and the "backer" as upon other criminals.

    Cast Adrift 1847

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