"This is the last year I'm a bookmaker," says independent bookie "Mac," an Irish American from the Northeast who was once a rising leader in what was left of the K&A gang in the late 1980s and early '90s. "The bettors are smarter now and my clientele are all people lookin' to hide money which means at the end of the week I end up with a piece of paper with some names on it, who owe big. Then, I got to go out and collect. And some of my customers are lookin' to hide. Then, I have to get serious.

"All the honorable people who play use credit cards on the Internet. The Internet is killing sports books like me. … It's stealing customers from me!"

Long known for his money-making and street-fighting skills, Mac was a figure few local gangsters dared to cross. He worked hand-in-glove as an enforcer, bookmaker and loan shark for the Philly mob when it was run by "Little Nicky" Scarfo. He even did hardcore jail time for racketeering. But Mac had a falling out with the mob when Skinny Joey Merlino was in charge, so he decided to go his own way.

"I've got a construction company that's making more money legitimately than I could make out on the street," he says.

With a new leaf almost turned, Mac's pragmatic; he figures the new casinos that will be licensed by the state and built in Philadelphia would further drain his coffers.

"First it will be slots, but then it will be table games," he predicts. "What I really want now is a legitimate subcontract on one of the new casinos they're going to build. Or maybe just ownership of a piece of land next door to one of those casinos. That would be nice."

As state officials say they're diligently working to keep organized crime out of the proposed casinos, that won't be easy.

Though his sports book, which operates from Port Richmond to Wildwood, N.J., Mac maintains connections to traditional organized crime: When he has more bets than he can cover financially, he sends some of his action to a bigger shark that's backed by a New York crime family. (Mac says he is still friends with some New York wise guys but no longer has any direct "business dealings" with them.)

Except for occasional dealings with the Russian mob—he says they have a stranglehold on Northeast Philly and Bucks County—and placing some video-poker machines in Northeast Philly bars, Mac sees little opportunity for the kind of organized crime he used to practice.

Like other sixty-something snowbirds, reputed Mafia boss Joseph "Uncle Joe" Ligambi prefers South Florida to South Philly in the dead of winter. Last winter, he took a cruise and vacationed in the Sunshine State, the place to which underworld associates and law-enforcement sources say he returned this month. But while Ligambi is busy sunning, the crime family he allegedly heads remains hard at work.

Police are currently looking into a new mobbed-up loan-sharking operation that recently surfaced. They're also investigating reports that merchandise from hijacked trucks and unguarded freight cars is now being moved by mob associates. The latter marks a return to the Merlino days (though we're not sure if sweatpants and baby formula remain the fruits of their labor). Police also see the family diversifying with increased Mafia activity, including recruitment efforts, in Montgomery and Delaware counties. Plus, a new captain—or capo—has been appointed to oversee the mob's South Jersey division.

"More and more, the money is being made in the suburbs," says one investigator, "so that's why they need more crews working in those places."

But it's not all illegal activity for the mob. Several high-ranking mobsters are setting up legitimate local businesses, including restaurants, bars, coffee shops and construction companies in the city and South Jersey. Later this month, one reputed mob capo's wife is planning to open up a flooring-supply company in South Philly.

"Uncle Joe wants his guys to have legit jobs," explains one associate. "It means no problems with the IRS. It's better than a bunch of birds hangin' around some social club all day with no way to explain how they make a buck."

If you believe wise-guy claims that Ligambi doesn't want anybody trafficking in drugs, the mob's top moneymaker is illegal sports bookmaking. And it just so happens they're about to come into their gravy season with Super Bowl XL looming just two weeks off. (It matters little that the Eagles are long gone; people still love to bet the games even when the home team's out of it.)

Until a few months ago, one of the largest sports bookmaking operations in the Delaware family was run by New York's Genovese crime family, which paid a tax, or "tribute," for the gambling-franchise rights.

An organized crime investigator tells City Paper that the local mob reassumed control of the profitable sports book after 14 alleged members and associates of the Genovese's North Jersey crime faction were indicted by the feds five months ago.