Poker Machines actually were always legal as long as you did not make a pay out to someone if they won. So, if there was no payout, hardly anyone would ever play the machine. The Poker machine racket in Chicago works like this: 1) Bar owner agrees to do business with the Outfit somewhere on the South side. A couple machines are placed in the establishment. Bar owner agrees to make pay offs to winners but is told to 'get to know the player as much as possible before payouts are made'. 3) Each week a Soldier/Associate collects. He makes sure the machines have not been damaged, does a reading on the machine to verify gross income and winnings. 4) Bar owner receives 50% of net income from the machine.
Again, How long do you think it's going to take before the Feds send in one of their own agents who becomes friendly with the Tavern owner, starts receiving payouts, and then begins building his case. The Bar owner then will be approached by the Feds at a later point and he will become so scared that he will cooperate because he really has NO FEAR of the Outfit. He FEARS the Feds a lot more. The largest number of Informants in these cases are the Street/Associates (Bar owners, street bookies etc.) who easily cooperate with information or they wear a wire. Then, the Feds approach the Soldier/Collector who actually belongs to the Crew. Hopefully they will scare him enough into cooperating enough so they can go after the Made guy or guys & The Crew Boss. Sometimes the Soldier/Associate will cooperate rather than go to prison because there's a good chance the Outfit won't pay his wife any money when he's gone. Plus that, He doesn't fear his superiors the way these guys used to fear them in the old days, especially when he sees guys like Frank Calabrese Jr. & Frank Cullotta walking around untouched. It's all really a sign of weakness on the part of the Outfit if you really stop and think about it.

Again great info Chicago and great points on the legal loan centers which I hope some of these guys got in on as they basically invented the service . As you correctly pointed out rates are lower but high enough to make alot of $ and not too mention the lender might be get some collateral .

Makes alot of sense , as the members become more legit there is no reason to have a formal structure or organization

It just seems like the Outfit has died a slow death in terms of illegal income and violence . Now that's not saying some of these guys don't make alot of $ as you have pointed out but rather the illegal and violence aspects of the outfit is almost gone . I'm not sure why I never put all this together ( I suppose I just thought the outfit would always be powerful ) but your info jives with available public information . It's just shocking to me how quickly this happened. The Feds have definately taking away alot of the mob $ makers in NJ but their bread and butter still goes on every day ( just on a smaller scale ) . Book making , sharking , garbage , construction , union still has activity , it's just quieter . Shoot my neighbor is a bartender at AJs which is a go go in JC and Papa Smurf was there almost every day, I saw him many times and he just got busted as a multi million garbage racketeer , you would never know , just your avg old italian man that liked his young Spanish girls, lol .

Who knows maybe what happened in Chi will happen in NJ soon, I would just be shocked like I am about the Outfit today.

Is DiFronzo going to go down as the man that killed the outfit?

If he would have been active in the past 20 years, do you think the Outfit would be in a different status?

Absolutely. DiFronzo's retreatment, along with Lombardo, Pete DiFronzo & Andriacchi divided the Outfit and hurt it as much as attrition or Federal Rico Prosecutions. It would be like having the all star Quarterback quit because he would rather play golf than risk being injured playing football. And then, a couple other star players on the team quit with him.

yes there is a lot of conjecture that the guy might be a rat, he let the organization dwindle down to a mere shawdow of what it was even 15 or 20 years ago. I doubt he gives two shits about the outfit hes contempt with his millions and as a lot of other peolpe said he only cares about not dying in prison. I think he is going to be responsible for bringing about the extinction of the outfit 20 or 30 years earlier then it would without him