Joker Journal
By Dave Cinch
(All Rights Reserved)

Vic Mobster-elli

When I started writing this column several years ago, I promised that I was going to depict the unforgettable characters that belly up in our beloved poker games, no matter how much jeopardy it might put me in. So I've either got to violate my journalistic scruples or tell you about this gangster-type gambler in the Bluegrass, who might not appreciate seeing his name in lights.

His name is Vic, and he looks just like the guys in the movie Mobsters. I call him Vic Mobsterelli. His gambling is limited to pool, horses, dice, numbers, bingo, roulette, backgammon, golf, short cards, horseshoes, poker, dog races, chicken fights, lotteries, jai alai, darts...stuff like that. Basically, anything that moves.

Vic had two fronts so the law wouldn't realize that he was really a mobster. One, he was a baker; and two, he managed security at gentlemen's clubs. In the bakery he cooked donuts, and in the clubs he kicked asses. He was the only guy who ever bounced for three or four clubs at once. All people had to know was that Mobsterelli was on call, and nobody started any crap. It was like that. So eventually he hung up his dough roller and just laid around doing nothing, collecting from the clubs. You can't blame him. That's a pretty good gig if you can get it.

One time he got laid up in a comped riverboat casino suite for 30 days and 30 nights and never left the room. They carried the world's fair right into his room, including food, escorts, the protection money from the clubs, craps tables to gamble on - you name it. When his host was notified that he had overstayed the hotel's policy and was barricaded in the penthouse probably doing mobster stuff, she called for backup and went to knock on his door.

When Vic looked through the peephole and saw his host flanked by upper level management and the Gaming Commission, he knew he had to make a move. I was staying on the other end of the same floor, so he called my room and asked if I could help him out. He said that management was at the door and that he had everything from maids tied up in the closet, to missing persons piled up in the corner, to hookers in the hot tub and what was he gonna do? "Sit tight," I said. "I'll think of something."

So I staggered out into the middle of the hallway and faked a coronary, creating a diversion for him. He slipped out in the confusion and fled for the mountains. Which was a good idea because nobody has ever gone into the mountains of Kentucky looking for anybody. Not since the Hatfields and McCoys, and that turned out worse than the Civil War.

Vic had to lay low for a few years, avoiding all his normal haunts. Eventually the Pinkertons, who had joined the manhunt and were hot on his trail, had to move on to other cases, and the heat was off. So Vic started popping up around town again. He even started up a hold'em game, where he liked to do things like three-bet with 4-5 suited. I told him they'd put his picture on the wall of his own poker game if he wasn't careful. His reply was: "I'll just be glad when they take it down at the Post Office."

He was a dandy stake horse, Mobsterelli was. He won every time I ever backed him in a poker game, and I do mean 100 %. Contrast that with the zero % return I was accustomed to getting whenever I backed anyone else, and you can see why I write more fondly of him than most.

If he would just reduce his games of choice from every game on earth, and maybe specialize in, say, half of them, it'd be an improvement. But hey, how do you tell a mobster that he's out of line? I'll never forget when I saw him in the barber chair one time and the barber had a stricken look on his face, like this might be the last haircut he ever did if it didn't turn out just right. It's a Mobsters thing. Check out the movie with Richard Grieco, Christian Slater, et al. You'll see what I mean. Vic's a dead ringer for the Grieco character if there ever was one. The hair, the look, the attitude, the "I" on the end of his name - the whole kit and kaboodle. Total package mobster.

Back at the boat, his poor host had never seen anything quite like him, and it ended up costing her the job. When Vic "checked out," they had to call the morgue, the vice squad, the Missing Persons Bureau, Immigration and Naturalization Services (for when they got the maids untied), the Secret Service (for some suspicious looking chips and currency found in the room), the ATF (over some moonshine he was distilling in the bathtub), and the FBI (because the boat was just across the river, over the state line). The Federal Trade Commission also came snooping around because of the rumor that Mobsterelli had a monopoly in "protecting" the gentleman's clubs.

In other words, not your standard checkout. "He seemed like such a nice guy," the host told her boss. When they played the security tapes showing all the stuff that had gone in and out of The Mobster's room during his stay, the gaming commission considered imploding the hotel and the riverboat on the spot, to make an example of them. Instead, they decided to clean house from top to bottom. But Vic's stay became a bit of an urban legend at the hotel. They named his infamous room the "Mobsterelli Suite," and reserved it for high rollers only - which was a big hit. The canned host is now working at the gentleman's club, and I hope she's not holding her breath waiting for a gentleman. And Vic? Well, he's fine-tuning his hold'em game on the tournament trail. "No harm, no foul," he said, when asked about the whole thing. "It was just a little junket. I was just gambling."

When a throwback mobster gets his nose open on a gambling junket, the rules are a little different than in the polite, social type gambling most people are accustomed to. Pretty much anything goes. For instance, if you take a hit playing blackjack when you shouldn't have and you're at The Mobster's table, it's won't be about whispers under the breath and eyes being rolled. You better have your life preserver handy - because you can get thrown in the river. And a little moon shine, some kidnapped housekeepers, a S.W.A.T. team to encourage you to check out - that's all just part of the action. It's the type of gambling story that we used to have before gambling went corporate and got PG-rated.

Yeah, Mobsterelli was just born a generation too late. His kind of shenanigans are highly frowned upon since gambling became family oriented, but scarcely would have raised an eyebrow in the good fella era. Hell, Vic would have been a valued guest back in the day - just another one of the boys. 'Whatever happened to gambling at your own risk?' - Mobsterelli wanted to know. The risk was half the allure of it, wasn't it?