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This is a glossary of words related to the Mafia, primarily the Sicilian Mafia and Italian American Mafia. administration: the top-level "management" of an organized crime family -- the boss, underboss and consigliere. [1] associate: one who works with mobsters, but has not been asked to take the vow of Omertà; an almost confirmed, or made guy ...
The pizzo (Italian:) is protection money paid to the Mafia often in the form of a forced transfer of money resulting from extortion. The term is derived from the Sicilian pizzu ('beak'). To "let someone wet their beak" (Sicilian language fari vagnari u pizzu) is to pay protection money.
Slang terms for money often derive from the appearance and features of banknotes or coins, their values, historical associations or the units of currency concerned. Within a language community, some of the slang terms vary in social, ethnic, economic, and geographic strata but others have become the dominant way of referring to the currency and are regarded as mainstream, acceptable language ...
A protection racket is a type of racket and a scheme of organized crime perpetrated by a potentially hazardous organized crime group that generally guarantees protection outside the sanction of the law to another entity or individual from violence, robbery, ransacking, arson, vandalism, and other such threats, in exchange for payments at regular intervals.
Vigorish (also known as juice, under-juice, the cut, the take, the margin, the house edge or the vig) is the fee charged by a bookmaker for accepting a gambler's wager. In American English, it can also refer to the interest owed a loanshark in consideration for credit.
Former New York Mafia made member John Pennisi speaks to Insider about all the ways the mob make their money. John Pennisi was born and raised in an Italian New York neighborhood where the mob had ...
The numbers game, also known as the numbers racket, the Italian lottery, Mafia lottery, or the daily number, is a form of illegal gambling or illegal lottery played mostly in poor and working-class neighborhoods in the United States, wherein a bettor attempts to pick three digits to match those that will be randomly drawn the following day.
Zips (also Siggies or Geeps) is a slang term in the United States that was especially in use in the early 20th century.It was often used as a derogatory slur by Italian American and Sicilian American mobsters in reference to newer immigrant Sicilian and Italian mafiosi.