Im born and raised here so I've grown up and brushed shoulders with few people, combined with much research.

@blueraising347 Santo Trafficante did give Sonny permission to open the gambling place, and Trafficante even supplied card dealers for Sonny. Sonny met Santo I think only a couple times. Sonny mainly did business with Benny Husik who was running gambling for Santo at that time. One of those times he met Santo was Pappas restaurant in Tarpon Springs, and ironically Vincent Loscalzo drove Santo their at the same time Donnie Brasco drove Sonny there. Sonny tried to give Trafficante a greeting card with some cash in it the second time in a hotel room as a sign of respect, but Santo is smart as they get, and declined it right there (Sonny almost shit himself) but Santo knew that if this every came up in court that he could honestly say that he never accepted anything from Sonny. This later did come up in court and Santo was acquitted in the whole Donnie Brasco trial.
@furio Tampa never had much Irish and Jewish immigrants. All Sicilian Cuban and Spanish(directly from Spain). Bolita is a Cuban gambling game. It was originally run by Charlie wall but the bolita wars occured in early 1900s and trafficante family came out on top. The Sicilian here would rig the game. In bolita there is a bag that has almost like pool balls in it. Each one has a number and people would bet on which number was picked out of the bag. The Sicilians would freeze the ball that was supposed to be picked so they guy knew which one to grab or make the ball supposed to be picked heavier than the rest
As far as the cocaine epidemic in Miami in the 80's I don't believe trafficante had any connection at all. He was very old at that time and so we're all the made guys. The younger generation of the bedami family in Tampa at that time was flying in coke from Colombia I think Angelo bedami III. He wrote a book about it. I didn't read much of it was more interested in the mob part of the book not the Colombian coke parts.