Bud and Lou are the owners of the amusement park Kiddieland. Bud, a compulsive gambler, gets in trouble with the mob, and Lou finds himself struggling to keep his adopted children. When Bud is forced to make a shady deal, Lou tries to arrange a deal with the DA, but winds up framed for murder.

During the campaign for reelection, the crooked politician Paul Madvig decides to clean up his past, refusing the support of the gangster Nick Varna and associating to the respectable reformist politician Ralph Henry. When Ralph’s son, Taylor Henry, a gambler and the lover of Paul’s sister Opal, is murdered, Paul’s right arm, Ed Beaumont, finds his body on the street. Nick uses the financial situation of The Observer to force the publisher Clyde Matthews to use the newspaper to raise the suspicion that Paul Madvig might have killed Taylor.