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| - Dino Vicente Cellini, is the son of an Italian barber who immigrated to the U.S. Cellini had two brothers, Edward and Goffredo, and a sister Julia. Cellini grew up in the steel mill town of Steubenville, Ohio during the Depression years. As a youngster, Cellini worked at Rex's Cigar Store as a dice/craps casino dealer and croupier with singer Dean Martin, then known as Dean (Dino) Crocetti.
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| abstract
| - Dino Vicente Cellini, is the son of an Italian barber who immigrated to the U.S. Cellini had two brothers, Edward and Goffredo, and a sister Julia. Cellini grew up in the steel mill town of Steubenville, Ohio during the Depression years. As a youngster, Cellini worked at Rex's Cigar Store as a dice/craps casino dealer and croupier with singer Dean Martin, then known as Dean (Dino) Crocetti. During this era, many cigar stores in Steubenville were fronts for mob rackets; bookmaking, numbers, pool, illegal drinking, and illegal gambling rackets. Steel mill workers from Steubenville and nearby Youngstown, Ohio would frequent these stores after their shifts, spending their meager paychecks for this entertainment. Craps and Barboot, a Greek dice game, were the games of choice at these places. The gambling halls would hire "mechanics", specialists in manipulating the dice and cheating, to police their craps games. The mechanic would ward off undesirable customers, break winning streaks of lucky customers, and hustle those with lots of money to lose. Cellini was known for his talent with dice and eventually became the youngest "bust out" man in Steubenville. As a later associate of Santo Trafficante, Sr. and Meyer Lansky, Cellini ran the mob-backed Riviera Casino and Tropicana Club in Havana, Cuba. In 1959, the Cuban Revolution overthrew the Batista regime. The new Cuban president, Fidel Castro, closed all the casinos and forced the American mobsters, including Cellini, to leave the country.
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