Vin....you crack me up. 5 Trany's - where do you think of this sh*t?!?!?

The weakest tit family has got to be the Nebraska branch of the Outfit that jackass was touting on the other thread.

I just researched this for my blog Cosa Nostra News -- the Genovese Family, not the Gambinos, is now recognized as the most powerful Cosa Nostra family in the United States.

I also tried to put together briefs on who is running each of the Five New York Families and one trend leaps out: It seems triumvirates are replacing the long-standing tradition of a single-boss institution. It's like they are taking the boss, underboss and consiglieri, making them of equal rank, and creating a panel to run some of the families (about three use this kind of panel).

They may be doing this because it could help them in that it could confuse the Feds, who like those pyramid charts with all the headshots taped to the wall, stop any one man from becoming too powerful, and ease potential problems that could arise if factions are created.

What about Detroit and Kansas City?

What I've read in you're other posts is very convincing. I don't think the Gambino's ever 'supplanted' the Genovese, but I really think that from the mid 1960s to the mid 1970s the Gambinos were as powerful as the Genoveses, and because they had the most powerful boss they may have had a slight edge.

If the difference was as minor as the #1 and #1a you state it's as good as impossible to actually measure the difference in power.

Here is my understanding of who had control over, or a piece of, the casinos in Vegas years ago:

The Flamingo - opened by Bugsy with NY $, primarily Genovese Family $ and Lansky. Bought by Hilton in 1971.

The Stardust - Chicago and Cleveland.

The Tropicana - Frank Costello and the Genovese's.

The Aladdin - St. Louis (Shenker) and Detroit

The Dunes - Chicago and St. Louis (Shenker)

The Sands - Genovese, Lansky and Stacher. Sinatra owned a piece later.

The Desert Inn - Dalitz, Cleveland and Chicago.

The Frontier - St. Louis (Giordano) and Chicago

The Riviera - Chicago

The Fremont, Circus-Circus & the Hacienda - Chicago briefly.

I agree, in the 1950's and 60's, the Genovese's controlled more casinos after the Outfit.

I think the Bonanno's were one of two or three strongest families until the Massino/Vitale debacle in the mid 2000's. From reading all the stuff Vitale gave up they had a lot of big money makers and guys on the street before everyone started to flip, and that was at a time when many of the so called experts considered them a joke.

The Tropicana was later controlled by the Kansas City family.

http://www.onlinenevada.org/las_vegas_mob

Sonny - you are correct, the KC family took charge after the Atlantic City agreement. But let's not kid ourselves, KC was very much under the thumb of the Outfit.

I don't recall if the Genovese family took a side in that conflict. But after Grasso's death, Genovese consigliere Joey Ida was overheard on a bug talking about how they had "picked the new administration" after "Chin had selected the names." Similar to what happened after Phil Testa was killed in Philadelphia and the Genovese installed Scarfo as the new boss.



First, I have to say that it's a little strange that you're now trying to argue that video gambling is the Outfit's #1 money maker. Weren't you the guy who was just quoting one the defense attorneys talking about only a couple hundred machines left in Cicero as part of your case about the state of the mob there?

Second, there are a number of articles stating what is considered common knowledge - that gambling is the lifeblood of the Outfit, as it is any other mob family. Most don't really break it down further into how much comes in from different forms of gambling. Sports betting is the most common to all families though. Most still have video poker machines. Some still have involvement in the numbers racket, though it is much smaller now and usually just seems to be an appendage of the sports betting. And some still are involved in illegal high-stakes card games.

Binder himself wrote how the Outfit "retrenched itself around sports betting and video poker" in the 1990's. I would take with a grain of salt the blanket estimates about one machine being able to bring in $100,000 a year profit. The same article that cited that estimate also cited the Outfit having 1,000 machines, by which they determined it could be taking in $100 million a year from video poker. But it seems they forgot the standard arrangement where the business owner where the machines are placed typically gets 50% of the profit. And it's going on the assumption that all of the machines are taking in what is really the maximum possible throughout the year.

While video poker machines can be very profitable, the estimated amounts that come in from sports betting seems to be considerably larger. You're going to have more people betting on sports than using video poker machines, and usually with more money involved.



I agree that Gambino was the top boss at his peak. Where I disagree with many is that fact automatically meant his family was the top family.



If by "family," you only go by what the feds still consider viable, it would probably be the DeCavalcante family in New Jersey. In other words, there isn't enough left of the families outside of New York, Chicago, New England, New Jersey, and Philadelphia to where they could even be considered. But if one is of the opinion there is a family as long as there is still one or two guys left, that could be any number of places - New Orleans, maybe Milwaukee, Denver, etc.



You're conclusion is correct about the changing set up of family administrations in New York. The Genovese and Bonanno families haven't even bothered to install a new official (i.e. permanent) boss. The official bosses of the Gambino, Lucchese, and Colombo families will all die in prison. The Gambinos came the closest to the traditional set up when they had an acting boss (D'Amico), an acting underboss (Cefalu) and a consigliere (Corozzo). But the other families, as well as the Gambinos more recently, are now using acting bosses or ruling panels of some sort. The latter is usually three or more captains of equal rank, which is different than having a boss at the top and an underoboss and consigliere underneath him.



By the early 2000's it can be said the Bonannos were easily the #3 family in New York, and therefore in the country, having bypassed the Luccheses and Colombos who were suffering from major hits by law enforcement and defections at the time. I don't think the Bonannos ever replaced the Gambinos for the #2 spot though. They benefited from not being a big priority for the feds in the 1990's, by which they were able to rebound. The FBI later admitted that was a mistake.

The estimate is 25,000 video poker machines. That seems like an incredible amount but who knows.

How has Internet gambling cut into the mob's bookmaking profits?

I know three establishments in Chicago you can place a bet. Two in Bridgeport, one in the Patch.

But anyone I know who bets on sports uses the Internet.

I'm referring to a Sun Times article a few years ago that cited 1,000 machines, each of which could take in as much as $100,000 a year in profit, from which the $100 million figure came about.

It's something we'll never know. But looking at Marcello's M&M Amusement operation, he reportedly had his machines distributed in about 40 locations. He, of course, was head of the Cicero/Melrose Park crew and might have even been acting boss at one point. In any event, since the Outfit currently has 4 crews, and if one were to assume the other crews had similar sized video poker rackets, you're looking at a couple hundred locations total. Then the question comes down to how many machines in each location? 1? 2? 3? 5? It probably varies. I could see possibly a high of around 1,000 machines. But 25,000 seems way too high.



Most of the mob's sports betting business is done over the internet now. Local wire rooms, whether it be in New York or Chicago or wherever, are becoming more and more rare. The mob now utilizes phone banks and internet sites based in offshore locations in places like Costa Rica, Panama, the Dominican Republic, etc. Bettors can call a toll free phone number or go to a certain internet site using a name and password to place their bets. The mob bookie can check the site or call in to see whether his players won or lost. The actual exchange of cash takes place here between the bookie and the player and the bookie usually pays a flat fee per player account to the offshore internet sites and phone banks.

Here's a good article on the modern bookmaking business....



GAMBLING A VERY BIG WINNER FOR THE MOB
Sunday, February 19, 2006
By TOM TRONCONE
Staff Writer

A week or so before the Super Bowl, "Artie" from Wayne called an 800 number his friend gave him when the football season started. He provided his user name and password.

The woman who answered the phone spoke with a thick Hispanic accent.

"Give me the Steelers 20 times," he said in the gambler's parlance for a $100 bet.

On the Thursday after the game, Artie "settled up" with the friend, collecting $90 -- his winnings minus a fee -- and bought a few rounds of drinks for his buddies.

Artie made money on Pittsburgh's victory. So did one of the Mafia families operating sports betting rings in New Jersey, authorities believe.

Win or lose, the mob -- to no one's surprise -- is one of the biggest winners when it comes to sports wagering in the Garden State.

"It's the bread and butter of organized crime," said New Jersey State Police Capt. Mark Doyle, who oversees mob investigations for the agency in North Jersey. "They use this money to finance everything else they do, from drug distribution to prostitution to payoffs to unions and elected officials. Bettors have no idea where the money goes."

Scores of people are arrested each year in New Jersey for taking part in million-dollar betting rings connected to the Mafia. Most offenders never see the inside of a prison.

But no sports betting operation has ever received international attention like the one police busted earlier this month.

Authorities say former Philadelphia Flyers star Rick Tocchet and New Jersey State Trooper James Harney ran a sports betting operation that took in more than $1.7 million in bets in a little more than a month leading up to the Super Bowl.

Janet Jones, wife of hockey great Wayne Gretzky, allegedly placed $500,000 in bets with the ring. The names of other famous athletes have popped up as possible bettors as well.

The ring, authorities said, was "affiliated" with the Bruno crime family, which is based in Philadelphia but controls gambling operations throughout South Jersey as well as in parts of Newark.

But how would a ring such as the one the ex-hockey player and the trooper supposedly ran be connected to organized crime?

The state police wouldn't divulge details of the alleged mob ties. A defense lawyer hired by one of those charged in the case insisted the ring had no ties to organized crime. To date, authorities have said only that some mobsters may have been bettors and that Harney associated with others.

According to mob and sports betting experts, the answer could lie in the unseen world of big-money gaming. Peel back the veneer of any large betting ring and a world of "hedging," "vigs," "tributes," "protection" and "wire rooms" emerges.

Mob families split profits

It's a world where tens of millions of dollars are pumped into the coffers of the five mob families that control sports betting in New Jersey: the Genovese crime family in Bergen, Passaic, Hudson, Morris and Somerset counties; the Lucchese family in Essex, Morris and Union counties; the DeCavalcante family in Union and Monmouth counties; the Bonanno family in Union, Monmouth, Middlesex and Essex counties; and the Bruno/Scarfo family in South Jersey and the Silver Lake section of Newark.

Here's how it works:

A bookmaker and several associates grow a stable of regular bettors. They can choose to open their own office -- known as a "wire room" -- and receive incoming bets via an 800 number or through a password-protected Web site.

Such an operation is extremely risky and involves a large, detectable organization, mob investigators say.

In late January, the last of 19 people charged with operating a Genovese sports betting ring from a bar in Garwood pleaded guilty to gambling charges in Monmouth County. They included the street boss of one of the six Genovese crews that operate in the state, Ludwig "Ninny" Bruschi.

The case was one of the rare instances in which gambling rooms operated locally: Bruschi's crew used a Genovese wire room in New York City.

"We see it less and less," said one veteran detective. "It just makes more sense financially these days to do it outside the country."

Most rings simply outsource the bookmaking.

"You go down to Costa Rica and you see blockhouses with satellites," Doyle said. "And inside they have banks and banks of computers."

In nearly every case, the wire rooms are run by organized-crime families. The services charge bookmakers $20 to $30 a week per bettor. At the end of the week, the leader of the ring either calls the service or visits a secure site to see which of his clients are winners, which owe him money, and how much he owes the mob for use of the service.

The bookmaker pays the fee -- $20,000 to $30,000 a week -- to a contact in New York or New Jersey, mob investigators say.

But there's more.

If a bookie is "overexposed" on a certain team -- say, 1,000 people have bet the Giants but only 100 have bet their opponent -- the bookie will try to find a colleague who is in an opposite position. The two bookies then split their bets.

The mob does the same thing. A Genovese wire room receiving heavy betting on the Giants will exchange bets with a mob family from the city of their opponent. They combine to "hedge" the bets and "middle" the lines, a process that takes advantage of the difference in spreads in the two cities based on fan bases, investigators say.

"If you have everyone betting the Giants one day, you reach over to another operation that is getting heavy betting on the Steelers and take 20 of their 40 bets," Doyle said.

A no-lose situation

Although a bookmaker may not always win, the mob never loses.

"In order for a bookmaking operation to be successful, they have to hedge off," said Robert Buccino, longtime state mob investigator who now is chief of detectives in Union County. "If it's New York versus San Fran, New York could be minus 3 here, but go out to Cali and it's minus 1."

It's a strategy that police often employ during their investigations, with one officer calling in the favorite and another betting the underdog.

"So we don't lose the state's money," Doyle explained.

Authorities haven't disclosed whether they believe Tocchet and Harney used the services of a wire room. They have accused Tocchet, a millionaire former star athlete, of financing the alleged ring -- a role the mob usually plays in gambling rackets. They have also said that Harney sometimes took bets on his cellphone while patrolling the New Jersey Turnpike.

The federal government estimates that Americans illegally bet up to $200 billion each year, while less than $3 billion is bet legally on sports each year in Las Vegas. And while no numbers are available for only New Jersey, the tri-state area is considered the most active illegal gambling area in the country.

"It's a big moneymaker," said Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli. "It's dangerous because it's an unregulated business, where the consequences of not paying can be violent."

How the mob's gambling interests intersect with the lives of everyday people is evident, he said, in a major sports betting bust made by his office and the state police on Feb. 9. Paying the Genovese family for use of a Costa Rican wire room, the operation took in about $1 million in bets each week on football, hockey, soccer and other sports, Molinelli said.

Charged with operating or participating in the ring are a group of more than 50 people who run the social gamut: They include the manager of the Satin Dolls club in Lodi, the owner of Double D's Adult Lounge in Morristown, the owner of a long-term parking lot at Newark Liberty International Airport, a South Hackensack computer wholesaler, a Little Falls deli owner and a well-known Elvis Presley impersonator.

"Anytime you can cut off an income stream to organized crime, that's something we want to do," Molinelli said.

Besides financing other illicit activities, illegal sports betting "feeds the army" of soldiers who do the mob's dirty work, Buccino said.

It has always "allowed them to make money to live," he said.

"Sports betting should be legal," Buccino said. "Look at what the lottery did to the numbers racket: It killed it. And that used to be such big money [for the mob]."

Interesting. One thing I noticed is that if you read Coen's book, which is probably the most crystaline window into the Outfit I've ever come across at least, all of their rackets are very archaic. There's a glean of sophistication during the Vegas days with Lombardo wheeling and dealing with the union money but beyond that it's all juice loans, bookmaking and extortion. C'est tout.

They come off for the most part as very stupid. One big idea? Let's extort the owner of Connie's Pizza. Why? It just occurred to them that he was a successful businessman. So they literally went up to him and said "You owe us $100K." (Or maybe two, I forget.) Ditto with the real estate guy down here, Caciatorre, and ditto with Michael Cagnoni, who they blew to pieces. The others they left dead mice on their windshield to scare them. Really guys? Dead mice with nooses on them? And cut a puppy's head off and left it on a windsheild.

That is of course all the 26 Street Crew.

However, if you look at the evidence that's come to light, and it's not a perfect indication, what did Sarno get busted for? Video poker and thieving.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Outfit has its hands in offshore gambling and things of a more sophisticated nature but am left to wonder as there hasn't been a single shred of evidence brought up suggesting that.

You got it right Johnny - my uncle was a bookie associate for 64 years (he was Irish). Sports betting was his life blood, and he had a ton of cash at all times. When he passed, there were envelopes passed out to his heirs, and it was all greenbacks and some jewelry.

The older guys still like to place their bets with a bookie, usually in a bar or by phone. The younger generation uses the internet.

If my uncle were still alive, he would be suffering because there was no way he would ever have been able to learn to use a PC.

Tony:

It's odd, isn't it? The Internet has cut out many mob rackets: Sports gambling, prostitution, smut and even juice loans--now called "pay day loans," legal, and a huge growth industry on line.

Someone once tried to argue with me that the Outfit had ventured into these ventures on-line but if you read letters from people like Frank Calabrese they are barely literate.

And I would expect that John DiFronzo himself is like your uncle and wouldn't know what to do with a computer if you threw one at him.

Another correct assertion Johnny, which is why some of the smart wise guys are getting young comp sci geeks to set up their internet gambling and escort services. The mob is still there, but has been greatly supplanted by corporate money too. I cannot count the number of different franchises that off to cash paychecks and make loans. They are in all the strip malls here in the crappy areas of town.

Perna and Scarfo Jr from the Lucchese used some hot shot computer kid to set up their internet gambling sites, which were quite sophisticated.

The Gambino's had the medicare and health insurance fraud going through a 25 year insurance guy in Missouri that had no mob connections, but was greedy.

The other organized groups have filled the gaps. I know the Middle Europeans (Albanians and Serbians) are big in the health care fraud stuff.

For the families outside of New York, it's mostly down to the standard street rackets of gambling, loansharking, extortion, drug trafficking, and stolen goods. The New York families have these things, as well as continuing involvement in labor union racketeering and newer scams like stock fraud.

As has been said, bookmaking and video poker are the Outfit's mainstays. It really doesn't take a whole lot of sophistication to use offshore wire rooms and internet sites. Obviously with gambling comes loansharking. And there is still the "street tax" the Outfit imposes on things ranging from independent bookies to porn shops. For some reason, the Outfit has always had a lot of involvement in burglary rings. So that's nothing new.

Comparatively speaking, the 26th St/South Side crew has always been more "blue collar." They were the ones who took over the stolen auto racket in Chicago for a time decades ago. However the top guys in the crew, the Carusos, were big into the Laborers Union before being ousted a decade ago. But it seems the more sophisticated operations are on the north side. Guys like DiFronzo, Andriacchi, and others who have a lot of legit interests in trucking, demolition, auto dealerships, restaurants, and real estate.

I'd agree with you that many things have become rather passe. The state lottery really cut into the numbers racket. Prostitution became passe a long time ago. Pornography became more mainstream and the mob lost it's niche there; first with video tapes saturating the market and then the internet. Union reform, industry regulation, etc. And the mob has been marginalized in the drug trade for the last 25 years or so. But one exception is sports betting. The internet has only expanded the mob's involvement in that, as well as reduced much of the risk. If there's one area where the mob has retained its predominance, it's illegal sports betting.

The Missouri connection actually involved the Gambinos multi- million internet and phone billing scams. In the late 1990's the Gambinos also reportedly took in millions from pre-paid phone card scams. It was the Genovese family that ran health care scams in New Jersey back in the mid 1990's, as well as in the early part of the next decade in Brooklyn with the Russians. The Luccheses were involved in mortgage fraud as well as the old gas tax scam with the Russians in the early 2000's. The Genovese were busted for running a high-tech scam involving cloned credit cards in 2003. The Bonannos used computer hackers to obtain account numbers issued by Mexican banks by which the siphoned off millions of dollars. The Gambinos ran a multimillion dollar mortgage scam of their own in 2006. And all five New York families have ran several scams involving stocks and securities fraud that have come into the hundreds of millions in the last decade alone.



The Russians and other Eastern European OC groups - like the Armenians as we saw recently - are big into various forms of fraud, including health care fraud. Along with Bulgarians, Armenians, and Russians, Albanians were among those busted for running a multimillion dollar identity theft and credit card fraud ring in Vegas back in 2008. But Albanians are more well known for drug trafficking, ATM robberies, extortion, etc.

So are you saying that this description of Salvie Testa is not accurate?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvatore_Testa

He was a ruggedly handsome 210-pound man who stood 6 feet tall with hazel eyes and real long lashes and dimpled cheeks. He wore his wavy hair out over his ears in typical 1970s fashion and was known to wear track suits and double breasted suits, he enjoyed wearing a 10-gallon cowboy hat and leather cowboy boots. He reportedly had dark emotionless eyes and gave off the appearance of a great white shark with a scowl that made press photographers back away from him when looking to get his picture athletic build from playing racquet ball and tennis at an upscale Philadelphia country club that he belonged to. Some crime writers have compared Testa to Christopher Walken's character 'Frank White' in King of New York.

Whoever wrote that dreams about Salvie Testa blowing in his face.