Embattled bookmaker Corbo dies at 63

Friday, Oct. 24, 1997 | 11:01 a.m.

Albert Corbo was not one to shy away from a fight that others said was impossible to win.

A convicted bookmaker who was banned from Atlantic City casinos in the mid-1980s, he came to Las Vegas six years ago and, with his wife and three sons, owned and operated Don Best Computerized Sports Line Service.

For his past transgressions, however, Nevada gaming regulators made him the 26th entry into Nevada's Black Book in 1994, banning him from casino properties. Corbo took the fight to remove his name from the state's "List of Excluded Persons" to the Nevada Supreme Court and later to federal court.

Corbo long maintained that if a few out-of-state gambling-related convictions were enough to put someone into the Black Book, then more Las Vegans who did far worse than him should have been put in there.

Albert Anthony Corbo, a one-time Atlantic City junketeer who also pioneered sports book operations in the Dominican Republic, has died. He was 63.

Corbo died Tuesday at his home two months after being diagnosed with liver cancer. Services were earlier today at St. Viator's Catholic Church. Corbo will be entombed at Palm Valley View Memorial Park.

"Getting put into the Black Book devastated my father," said Dana Corbo, co-owner of the sports service on Spring Mountain Road where his father served as president. "He fought to the end to have his name removed. And, now it will be removed the only way I guess it can be -- by his death."

Dana reckons the federal court case will be dropped, ending any legal way of clearing his father's name.

"My father was the kind of person who would tell you if he disagreed with you -- he could be rough and blunt," Dana said. "But he was proud of his reputation. He was a good man who never hurt anyone. He worked 12-hour days, seven days a week to build his business.

"We will continue to run the business in a manner that he would have wanted."

Of his Las Vegas operation, Corbo was once quoted as saying: "Everything we do is above board. We are totally legitimate."

Corbo, the Philadelphia-raised son of an Italian-born tailor, was on his own by age 17, often working hard manual labor jobs to support himself.

In the 1970s, he and his late brother, Anthony Corbo, owned and operated ARCO service station franchises in the Philadelphia area. By the 1980s, Albert was running a successful junket operation out of Caesars in Atlantic City.

But, he loved gambling, and that contributed to his involvement in bookmaking.

Corbo was convicted of a federal gambling charge in Philadelphia in 1975 and also of a charge in 1989 of promoting gambling New Jersey. Two years later, he pleaded guilty to 24 counts of illegal bookmaking and one count of conspiracy in Florida. Corbo was banned from Atlantic City casinos in 1985.

His bookmaking operation in Miami was said to have been a multimillion-dollar venture that stretched all the way to New York City.

Corbo's bookmaking skills at times benefited him. He once was invited to the Dominican Republic to open a sports book at the DeCameron hotel. His son says it was the first of many such operations that would follow in that country.

Corbo came to Las Vegas in 1991, after having been a frequent visitor here since the early 1970s. He established Infoline Inc. and bought Don Best Sports in February 1992.

The business provides information like player injuries and game-day weather conditions to sports books, which use the reports to adjust the betting line. The company's sports information also is sold to the public.

At his 1994 hearing before the Nevada Gaming Commission, Corbo put up a strong fight to keep his name out of the Black Book.

More than a dozen witnesses testified he was not a threat to Nevada's gaming industry, including a retired Pennsylvania State Police officer who said authorities had no evidence to link Corbo to organized crime.

Corbo was once quoted as saying: "I know nobody in those circles."

The President's Commission on Organized Crime, however, had made a reference to Corbo, a fact that was presented to the gaming commission, which voted 5-0 to put him in the book.

During the last three years Corbo did not complain so much about not being allowed to go into a casino to gamble. He lamented, however, that he could not go to a nice restaurant in an establishment that had a gaming license or to fine retail shops at a casino property, Dana said.

In addition to his son, Corbo is survived by his wife, Betty Corbo; two other sons, Andrew Corbo and Michael Corbo; and a granddaughter, Allysa Corbo, all of of Las Vegas.

DONATIONS: In Albert Corbo's name to St. Viator's Catholic School and the American Cancer Society.