License Tag Was a Gamble, Indeed

Sheriff’s deputies, investigating what they say is the largest sports bookmaking operation ever uncovered in Orange County, could not help but smile when they saw the license plate on the vehicle belonging to a man they had arrested in the case. It read: AGMBLR2 , with a license holder saying: THE GOOD THE BAD & THE LUCKY. In a search of the vehicle Thursday, deputies said they recovered ledgers containing names of more bettors and betting agents. It was the latest development in the case, which has resulted in the arrests of eight people on suspicion of running the ring out of restaurants and residences in Orange and Los Angeles counties.

“The new evidence will surely firm up our cases, and as we analyze the information, more arrests may follow,” Investigator Larry Vance said.

The Ford utility truck is registered to Vincent Marchionno, 40, of Fullerton. Marchionno was among seven men and one woman arrested Tuesday night when sheriff’s deputies served search warrants on residences in Anaheim, Lakewood, Bellflower and Norwalk. They also searched Spoons restaurants in Santa Ana and Tustin and Shipmates Tavern in Cerritos, where some of the suspects worked.

Searches yielded ledgers and computerized records that Vance said appear to contain the coded identities of hundreds of bettors. The operation allegedly involved using employees of popular Orange County bars and restaurants as agents to take bets on professional and collegiate baseball, football, basketball, hockey and horse racing.

Deputies paid for the costs of their undercover investigation by placing winning bets on basketball’s Los Angeles Lakers and baseball’s Oakland Athletics, according to the Sheriff’s Department.

Marchionno had refused deputies’ request to search his vehicle when he and two others were arrested at a Bellflower apartment Tuesday. Deputies alleged that the men were accepting bets on the telephone when the arrests were made.

Vance said he secured a warrant to search Marchionno’s truck Thursday and confiscated betting slips and ledgers that he alleged could point investigators to the ringleaders of the alleged $3-million-a-year operation.

When contacted at his home Thursday, Marchionno declined comment.

He has been released on $10,000 bail. Thomas Eric Stevens, 52, of Norwalk and Mary Scallon, 25, a bookkeeper at Spoons in Tustin, were released after posting $50,000 and $10,000 bail, respectively.

Vance said the suspects still in jail on suspicion of bookmaking and conspiracy to commit bookmaking included two Spoons managers, Michael Dunn, 38, of Tustin and Thomas Sullivan, 30, of Fullerton; also Robert Reed, 59, of Anaheim; Donald Richard Trava, 37, of Lakewood, and Ian White, 30, of Bellflower. Bail for Trava and Reed was set at $50,000 each, $10,000 for the others.