The Secret Casino at Red Men's Hall - Softcover

The sleepy town of Mt. Holly, New Jersey, was more than it seemed. In the unsettled years following the Great Depression, it hosted the Secret Casino at Red Men's Hall, an underground playground that attracted Mafia bosses and players alike. Under the watchful and protective eye of author Samuel Valenza Jr.'s father, the casino was a thriving den for craps, roulette, poker, and slots players. The continuing cooperation of local law enforcement was assured each Saturday morning, when Officer Bucky Squires made his pickup of payoff money held for him in Mom's icebox. Growing up in this environment, the author's young life was scarred with violence, fear, hunger, betrayal, and homelessness, while his father enjoyed the high life with his powerful gangster associates. The author was just six years old when Frank "Paulie" Carbo, a prolific Murder, Inc. assassin, raided the casino and slaughtered his uncle, the casino handyman and 'gofer'-as a warning. The murder was the beginning of the end at Red Men's Hall, which fell under intense scrutiny from the authorities. Using the narrative style of a crime novel, Valenza recalls the intimate and often dangerous days of a life lived in the shadow of the Mafia.

Samuel W. Valenza Jr. grew up in shadows of World War II and amid the burgeoning Mafia presence in his native New Jersey. He served in the US Marines and at the US Naval Academy before earning his BA in math from Rutgers. In 1980 he created Lottery Player's Magazine, which became the largest paid circulation magazine in the gaming industry and eventually evolved into Lottery and Gaming News. He and his wife, Dorothy, live in Evesham Township, New Jersey, in an historic 171 year-old farmhouse.