Betting on bada bing

The mob may be out of Vegas but it's alive and well in online gaming. And not just the goodfellas, but the molls as well. Internet casino CasinoFortune.com, seeing that they were getting, excuse the expression, hits from a lot of women, discovered that females liked the idea of going to a cyber-casino (they don't have to dress up, you see) but not online sports books or poker sites (where the men flock).

So they figured, who better to use as endorser enforcers than the actress who plays Tony Soprano's daughter, Jamie-Lynn DiScala, and Federico Castelluccio, the actor who appropriately enough grew up in New Jersey and played Furio, the gigolo who had a season-long flirtation with Tony’s wife Carmela. It's the romance thing of theirs, you see.

"Everybody watches The Sopranos," a CasinoFortune.com spokeswiseguy explains, saying once they saw the research about the girls, the decision to use the two fictional gangstas was—in an unfortunate analogy if there ever was one—"a head-slapping moment."

Even resultant controversy helped hype registrations, says the rep, with monthly new player recruitment going up when DiScala scuttled her deal. That, in fact, seems to have led directly to the signing of Castelluccio.

Emboldened by this success, the site is now setting its sights on luring the boys to their electronic house of sin. One possible endorser under consideration is former boxer Joe Frazier.

Who's next? Who knows?

Fughedaboudit.

—Posted by Jack Feuer

December 15, 2004 | Permalink