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This week there were twenty- six individuals including a ‘capo’ Nicholas Corozzo who are charged with operating a highly sophisticated illegal gambling ring right out of Brooklyn Queens.

It is said that they booked close to $10 million in bets over the last two years, on all professional sports including college events.

Six of those individuals are pending a civil lawsuit for engaging in a criminal enterprise that promoted illegal activities and generated illegal wages.



The sites in question that received the bets included – Betmsg.com, Betallsports.com, Betwsi.com; and Betoffshore.net.

The indictment consists of 29 counts of enterprise corruption and the courts stated that the gambling ring promoted illegal sports betting with wire rooms in Queens along with offshore computerized wire rooms located in Costa Rica.

The investigation began in 2005 when the NYPD Vice Enforcement Division’s Major Case Team and the Queens DOA was tipped off to loan sharking activities and a possible illegal gambling ring. From there they began to use surveillance equipment, electronic eavesdropping authorized by the courts which managed to record hundreds of phone calls and conversations.

Over a two year period they were able to track the ring to “Nicky Corozzo Crew of the Gambino Crime Family” and that they had generated over $9.8 million in gross revenue from November 2005 – January 2008.

How did they do it? Well unlike the old days of the bookie in the backroom, Nicky as was mentioned overseeing daily operations of his men, next down from him was Neil Allstatt who was the controller and responsible for handling daily disputes and accounting for discrepancies, runners and bettors. Allstat is also charged as an ‘agent’ along with Micheal Scarols and Todd Segarra.

Agents would then manage the offshore accounts for both wins and losses, tallying them for the runners weekly numbers and amounts that are either payable or owed to betters. From there they had the typical bookmakers who would meet with the controller each week. These men were responsible for collecting or paying out money to the betters.

On staff was also the clerk who would accept wagers over the phone and record the bets. Nicky’s clerk would do this both through audio recording and on paper. Then down one more level is the ‘money collectors’ and in this group six have been accounted for. The responsibility of these men were to exchanging, distributing, delivering and transferring gambling proceeds between members of the organization, including to and from agents/runners. It also been reported that some financial institutions have allegedly been involved in this part of the process.

Then come the runners – the responsibilities here included accepting and relaying bets or giving bettors a phone number with a runners code for a specific wire room or site. Each runner received a share of profits from the ring and was allowed to manage their own group of betters. They also settle up any wins or loses with their betters.

With the debt collection Nicky has his own group of ‘soldiers’- Nicky’s brother overseen this area and included assisting in setting wagering limits as well as making a profit on the wire room in Queens. He is also accused of opening the off shore accounts.

On top of the charges already stated the bossmen and one of his soldiers is charged with lending betters money and in true mob style they charged all borrowers a 200% interest rate and threatened them with physical violence if they did not pay on time. The problem here is the law allows a 25% rate not the 200% they were handing out.

This operation allowed betters to use one of the above mentioned websites to place bets and were given and individual login and password. They would then place a bet and any wins or loses would be entered into a separate account also known as a subaccount. These accounts were managed by the runners and agents. By doing this the Gambino family was able to significantly increase their profits by over 1000% during the last two years.

All twenty-six defendants have now been charges with promoting gambling, criminal usury, grand larceny, conspiracy, enterprise corruption, and a violation of the New York’s Organized Crime Control Act. If convicted they could face up to 25 years of imprisonment.