While the Mafia has long made it's bread and butter off the habits of compulsive gamblers, I've read that some (made) guys were also very bad, compulsive gamblers themselves, in debt to bookies or other Mafiosos....Who are some historical made guys that were "degenerate gamblers"?

John Gotti.

Lefty Ruggerio.

Lefty ruggiero was a pretty bad gambler that always owed fellow wiseguys money.

Probly half of all wiseguys have some sort of problem, drugs, gambling, etc. Biggest degenerates? Gotti, Jack Damico, paulie Mancuso, Al longo, Nicky o, Bobby Cabert, Vinny Butch, Joe sas, Tick, Fazzini, Christy, Buddy Attanasio..... tons

Which tick are you referring to as a degenerate the dead one or the alive one?

tommy bilotti, , fat dom..just about everyone that hung around spero..lenny dello, albert a.....dellacroce, joe gambino, all the zips around john gambino..frankie rubino..50% of mob guys had the bug at one time. atlantic city ruined a lot of guys.

Anthony Spero's old crew. I would say at least half of the made guys in New York.

Lil also book mentions ray coumo and the prince st heroin guys blowing tons of the money and next day back to slinging kilos of h. I would have put my doe on green bay Rodgers looked bad today sf is good. Patriots winning it all anyway. Bradys yr wit no gronk or a hernendez

^^^the tick from silver lake who passed away last year.

Pepe Lascala supposedly lost millions from sports. The main reason longo isn't a captain now is bc of like bx said he had the bug. Owed over a mil to punchy and Rossi

Eddie Mush

Vincent Teresa - Boston

I wouldn't label him a "degenerate," even though he loves to play cards. But I'm reminded of Tony Megale. I remember back in '89 or '90 when he was waiting to start his first Federal bid. I think he initially got like three years. Anyway, after he was sentenced the judge gave him a few months to get his affairs in order before he had to begin serving his sentence. And in that interim period he came on a junket to Atlantic City and bought into the blackjack table for like 30k in cash. The problem was, he was supposed to be broke in the eyes of the law. And as everyone knows, casinos mean cameras. He was hit with an additional charge of tax evasion and ended up with an extra year or two. Now Tony is a VERY bright guy. But it just goes to show that even the best and the brightest are guilty of bad judgement every now and then.

would have to say joey merlino based on what i've read, but i guess if you're not paying the bookies anyway it doesn't matter how much you lose.

That's a pretty good indicator of what kind of guy you're dealing with. If you're making money and you have your stripes, and you use that influence to bully people and stiff them out of money, then you're a scumbag. I don't care who you are.

Ya thats a pretty good description of merlino, apparently he would go to the night clubs with his entourage and start fights with random people, beat the shit out of them and rob them, it seems only in philly would a boss go around doing stuff like that.

Nebee Gerace, Anthony Inserra, Teeter Nole...Three of the worse hard luck dgenerate gamblers I have ever seen.

Anthony antico, Danny Marino, the biggest bookies usually are some of the worst gamblers

Yes, they were the first names to come to mind when reading the thread question. To me, it was one of the most interesting parts of D'Arco's biography.

They could have saved a ton of money simply from dealing H. Or through the success of Ray's Pizza. But they seemingly had little to show from the millions made due to being lousy gamblers. The hosts in Atlantic City must have loved it when they came to town.....

That's a fact. I mentioned Tony Megale before, but speaking of Connecticut, NO ONE was a bigger banger at the craps table than Taylor. The Korean whales at the old Sands AC would look at him with their mouths wide fucking open. And that's no bullshit.

He's not a wiseguy. Hell, he ain't even Italian. But for awhile there, he ran one of the biggest books in Connecticut. Maybe THE biggest. And the guy ended up dead broke. Bet with your heads, kids, not over it .

Joe Sass a degenerate gambler? In what world??

Lefty ruggiero had so many debts with the Bonanno capos, that for many years wasn't made until he payed off all his debts, but also as a made man continued to be a degenerate gambler asking money at all.Pistone was lucky to have to deal with thissubject, who always need money, and then proving him that he was a good earner, was able to comquistare his confidence.

Tony Soprano in one episode of 6th season, lol.

a fact. Once these guys get locked up throughout their bid they become even worse gamblers it's ridiculous the money some of these mob guys gamble (throw) away and sometimes sad when you know they are getting their families to send these thousands of dollars out to the bookie they lost to, and back to the poker table they go, back to the bookie's cell to put 50 books of stamps on that night's game. Never ends.

whats the latest with Pepe? that trial still going on? one of the most interesting indictments ive read

I wish people would stop writing "mafiosos". There is no "s" for plural in Italian.
It's mafioso (s) and mafiosi (p).

I wish you would post more

Arnold Rothstein, but he was very good at it until the end..

I liked reading about Burton Kaplan's gambling addiction and how it got him involved in organized crime in the book The Good Rat. Here's an excerpt:



Q: Sir, you talked earlier about having a gambling problem. Can you tell the jury a little bit about that?

A: Yes. I was a compulsive gambler from the time I was thirteen.

Q: And how did that start?

A: I went to the racetrack with my father a few times, and then I started playing poker in the neighborhood, and I enjoyed it and I became sick with it.

Q: You said you became sick with it. What do you mean by that?

A: I couldn’t control myself. I was doing every bad thing to get money to gamble. I was thirteen when I started gambling, and then in 1975 I joined Gamblers Anonymous, and I didn’t gamble for thirteen years.

Q: And after joining and not gambling for thirteen years, what happened in the late eighties?

A: I went back to gambling. I didn’t become anywhere near as degenerate a gambler as I was.

Q: As a result of all this gambling you did, did you lose money?

A: In my lifetime? Probably around three million.

Q: Did you find yourself owing various people money?

A: Yes.

Q: And for how many years in your life did you owe people money with respect to your gambling habit, not like a house loan or something like that?

A: Probably from the time I was in my twenties until 1975.

Q: And did you have to borrow money from people to support your gambling habit?

A: When my credit got used up in the banks, I borrowed from finance companies.

Q: Did there come a time that you started borrowing money from family and friends?

A: Yes.

Q: And did there come a time you started borrowing money from loan sharks?

A: Yes.

Q: Did owing money from gambling lead to you becoming involved with organized-crime figures?

A: Yes.

Tony bender strollo was a bad gambler. Also Neil dellacroce got 3 urs for income tax evasion cuz he lost 300k in a weekend in the Caribbean and he only showed like 25k on his return. Nicky crow in his book how he was broke for 30yrs cuz all the money he made he just gambled away

almost all of the guys from that case have pleaded out and some have been sentenced. Lascala is still holding out.