Rhode Island Gambling Arrests Have Local Bookies Worried: 7 More Taken Down

It’s been an especially bad week for those involved in the illegal gambling trade throughout the tiny state of Rhode Island this week as a series of high profile arrests have bookies shaking in their shoes.

Following the arrests of 17 individuals tied to a Mafia-run sports betting ring, authorities in Providence pulled the plug on another large-scale gambling venture that several storefronts and residential properties on the city’s South Side and in the West End.

Those charged with organized criminal gambling business, bookmaking, forms of gambling prohibited and keeping a gambling place were:

    Stephany Cabrera, age 24

    Pamela Espinal, age 20

    Noel Acevedo, age 42

    Ivelisse Bencosme, age 22

    Frannys Gomez Urbaez, age 37

    Kelvin Leonel Vasquez Bisono, age 35

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The following were charged with gambling and lotteries, keeping of gambling places, gambling and lottery forms of gambling prohibited and bookmaking:

    Felix Vasquez aka Dionis Arias, age 45

    Francisco Espinal alias John Doe, age 27

    Mery Garcia, age 22

The investigation is not connected to State Police investigation into illegal gambling in Warwick and Narragansett earlier this week that netted some of the state’s top former High School star athletes as well as a current Arizona Diamondback player.

Many residing in the state of Rhode Island are unaware of the archaic laws pertaining to sports wagers and bookmaking.  Rhode Island law makes no exception for gaming law due to the location of the game. That is the official position of the Attorney General’s office. As such, even one’s Super Bowl squares bet in an office or party gathering Rhode Island is explicitly illegal.

- Jagajeet Chiba, Gambling911.com