1. You have to start somewhere
Yeah you do. But is it worth the risk of uprooting your man-power to "foreign" when you can make that money at home. Conneticut and NJ is close enough to be "home turf" to NY families. But moving out to Louisville or Northern Virginia is something that is going to take more than "sending a couple of guys" to get a lock on.
2. Most ethnic street gangs don't deal in gambling and juice. They deal in drugs. Besides, I'm not talking about going into Gary Indiana. I'm talking about the suburbs of major cities. Those people gamble too.
At legit places were they may be robbed blind, but at least they'll come out with their kneecaps intact. With legal gambling spreading to more and more places, taking down a marker "Big Sal" isn't that appealing to people who are in traveling distance to an Indian casinos and don't want to deal with street characters. The legit casino business here in Reno has been slaughtered by the opening of Indian casinos in Nor Cal and I'm sure that the effect has been the same for the mob on the east coast and midwest. Why go to "Big Sal" if you're not a desperate degenerate gambler?
And there are only so many of those to go around. New York, NJ and it's burbs are huge enough to provide demand but I doubt Pittsburgh or Denver could. New York's bread and butter is gambling and shylock, but they still make money off of drugs. Could they resist infringing on street gang or ethnic OC turf? I don't think they could, it only takes one or two greedy meatheads to touch off a war.
3. You send a made man and a few associates. The families have a bunch of brokesters and troublemakers who aren't earning. Send them to another city to start up gambling operations. You have to start somewhere. How did those bookies get started?
And drain off your crews in NY to do an uncertain venture on unfamiliar turf, see my point above, it isn't impossible but I doubt it's worth the trouble and potential conflict with people who are established there.
4. I don't think they're struggling to maintain a hold in NY/NJ. The gambling and juice rackets there are saturated.
Yet people keep getting popped and will continue to get popped. They're already scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of guys smart enough to run complicated rackets. Why drain off the pipeline of replacements to bet on uncertain risks?
5. If the mob can only operate in cohesive Italian neighborhoods, then they are doomed. The Little Italy in KC is about 4 square blocks. There is no little Italy in Detroit and barely anything left in Chicago. The fact is, everyone gambles and gamblers lose and borrow money. There was no Italian community in Las Vegas and the mob had a lock on that city.
Las Vegas isn't a real typical example of a "mob town", the only racket cosa nostra there to exploit was the casino skim and shylocking that went along with it. As soon as the skim was gone the mob went away with it.
Say how is cosa nostra in KC today? Not too good is it? Same with L.A., New Orleans, SF and other places where the "little italy" have died off. Chicago is one of the examples where cosa nostra has been able to expand in to the suburbs, but they aren't your typical family in that they've always been comfortable in treating non-italians as family members.
