As far as Giancana FORCING Accardo to "give up the throne", this has been a subject of debate for awhile now!! It seems that you have two sides to every story, ESPECIALLY THIS ONE. Giancana loyalists say one thing while Accardo's say the other. From what I've been able to gather, through books, magazine articles and newspaper stories, is that Sam was released from prison, where he was informed about how much money the South Side Blacks were making from, "the policy/numbers" racket, which the past bosses never really considered. Well, upon his release, Sam meets with the upper heirarchy of the Outfit at the time, explains what he's got planned with regards to taking over the South-Side policy racket and what he estimates "the take", to be. Some say for this he was rewarded and named "street boss", while in all reality, Accardo, who demoted himself to consigliere, always maintained a tight grip on whoever he put into the boss's chair.
Let's remember, publicity was shunned, low key, under the radar is what helped make Accardo the man he was in the Chicago Outfit.
He was a top dog for over 50 years, never spent a night in prison
and managed to avoid the spotlight while raking in millions from the Vegas Skim to Joker Poker Video Machines.