The term racketeering broadly refers to criminal acts, typically those involving extortion, that involve a "racket".

A racket, being some sort of scheme organized to extract illegal profits.

It is usually used in reference to patterns of illegal activity specified in the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO).

This is a U.S. federal law that makes it illegal to acquire or control a business through certain crimes or income from those crimes. It is also illegal to participate, even indirectly, in certain crimes committed by a business or to conspire to do any of the above under the act.

The list of federal crimes specified in RICO includes bribery, fraud, gambling offenses, money laundering, financial and economic crimes, obstructing justice or a criminal investigation, and murder for hire.

At the state level, racketeering can include crimes such as murder, kidnapping, gambling, arson, robbery, bribery, extortion, dealing in obscene matter, and drug crimes, as long as they align with the "generic definition of the state offense referenced at the time RICO was enacted."1