Meaning of protection racket in English

protection racket

noun [ C ]

/prəˈtek.ʃən ˌræk.ɪt/ uk

/prəˈtek.ʃən ˌræk.ɪt/

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a criminal system of taking money from people in exchange for agreeing not to hurt them or damage their property:

The gang ran illegal casinos, brothels, and protection rackets.

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(Definition of protection racket from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press)

protection racket | Business English

protection racket

noun [ C ]

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a situation in which a criminal group demands money from a store owner, company, etc. in exchange for agreeing not to harm them:

run a protection racket These thugs ran a vast protection racket with which all property-owners had to co-operate if they hoped to survive.

(Definition of protection racket from the Cambridge Business English Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

Examples of protection racket

protection racket

Protection racket politics have a certain elective affinity for monarchical systems.

From Foreign Policy

The ants are, in essence, running a protection racket.

From Wired

Officials tolerate private trade partly because they get a cut--in effect running a protection racket.

From Business Insider

It feels like a protection racket for online players.

From Ars Technica

Striking at the very heart of protection racket politics, these initiatives were rarely welcomed -- and sometimes violently suppressed -- by ruling regimes.

From Foreign Policy

If they did not, the bandit protection racket under which they existed burned their huts to the ground.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Yet official corruption and protection rackets point to the limits of reform.

From Business Insider

A more satisfying theory can separate a protection racket from the local police department.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Protected by government impunity, they still openly control the region's protection rackets and run for political office purely to boost their extortion empires.

From Hollywood Reporter

If protection rackets represent organized crime at its smoothest, then war making and state making—quintessential protection rackets with the advantage of legitimacy—qualify as our largest examples of organized crime….

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The common people clearly differentiated between the qabadayat and the zucran or hoodlums who ran protection rackets (khuwa) in the quarters and bazaars, although in reality such distinctions were hazy.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.

What is the pronunciation of protection racket?