N.J. Gambling Ring Is Busted
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ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — An illegal sports gambling ring run out of a high-stakes poker room in an Atlantic City casino was busted yesterday, authorities said, and 18 people were arrested, including four with mob ties.
Since March 2006, the ring took in $22 million in bets on college and professional football and basketball in the poker room of the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa, Attorney General Anne Milgram of New Jersey said.
The off-the-books exchanges of cash and casino chips were unraveled only when an informant told authorities what to look for using the casino’s eye-in-the-sky surveillance cameras, Ms. Milgram said. The suspected ringleader of the operation, Andrew Micali, 32, of Ventnor, is an associate of Philadelphia mob boss Joseph “Skinny Joey” Merlino, according to a New Jersey law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the criminal complaints do not mention mob ties.
