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ALL BETS OFF IN BROOKLYN ‘BOOKIE' BUST
ALL BETS OFF IN BROOKLYN ‘BOOKIE' BUST
By DAN MANGAN
A Staten Island man believed to have booked bets for baseball legend Pete Rose in the 1980s was among 13 people nabbed in the Brooklyn district attorney's annual "Super Bowl" gambling busts.
The man, Richard Troy, played a key role in sports-wagering operations that do $40 million annually in business, most of which funds the Gambino organized-crime family, Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes said yesterday.
Troy, who is in his mid-40s, and the others were arrested Saturday on various gambling charges in raids capping off an investigation that began last summer, according to lawmen.
Police seized $250,000 in cash, computers, betting slips, fax machines and a handgun from the suspects' homes and from rooms in Manhattan and Queens that handled telephoned wagers.
Some of the charges are linked to suspects allegedly steering customers to an Internet gambling site based in Costa Rica.
Hynes said illegal Internet gambling has exploded from an estimated $300 million in 1997 to $2 billion in revenue this year.
As he has for the past 11 years, Hynes timed the busts close to Super Bowl Sunday, which he said is the biggest gambling day of the year, with $4 billion illegally wagered on the football game.
"It is the cash cow of organized crime," Hynes said of sports wagering.
In 1989, Troy was identified in news reports as a bookie nicknamed "Val," who received bets from a Rose associate named Paul Janszen on behalf of the former baseball great.
By DAN MANGAN
A Staten Island man believed to have booked bets for baseball legend Pete Rose in the 1980s was among 13 people nabbed in the Brooklyn district attorney's annual "Super Bowl" gambling busts.
The man, Richard Troy, played a key role in sports-wagering operations that do $40 million annually in business, most of which funds the Gambino organized-crime family, Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes said yesterday.
Troy, who is in his mid-40s, and the others were arrested Saturday on various gambling charges in raids capping off an investigation that began last summer, according to lawmen.
Police seized $250,000 in cash, computers, betting slips, fax machines and a handgun from the suspects' homes and from rooms in Manhattan and Queens that handled telephoned wagers.
Some of the charges are linked to suspects allegedly steering customers to an Internet gambling site based in Costa Rica.
Hynes said illegal Internet gambling has exploded from an estimated $300 million in 1997 to $2 billion in revenue this year.
As he has for the past 11 years, Hynes timed the busts close to Super Bowl Sunday, which he said is the biggest gambling day of the year, with $4 billion illegally wagered on the football game.
"It is the cash cow of organized crime," Hynes said of sports wagering.
In 1989, Troy was identified in news reports as a bookie nicknamed "Val," who received bets from a Rose associate named Paul Janszen on behalf of the former baseball great.