Sure thing mob will lose big

The mob’s gambling racket is about to sleep with the fishes.

The Supreme Court’s sportsbetting ruling on Monday dealt a losing hand to organized crime in the New York area, legal experts said.

Gambling and loan-sharking have been the mob’s “bread and butter,” and the decision will “significantly reduce” its clientele, former federal prosecutor Thomas Seigel predicted.

“They will definitely lose a regular source of predictable income,” said Seigel, who ran the Organized Crime and Gangs Section of the Brooklyn US Attorney’s Office.

Defense lawyer John Meringolo, who has represented John “Junior” Gotti and reputed Philadelphia mob boss Joseph “Skinny Joey” Merlino, said legal sports-betting “will have a detrimental effect on the mob and anyone who tries to make a living through this type of vice.”

“For what’s left of what they do, this would significantly hurt their bottom line, if not completely destroy it,” said Merin- golo, also a Pace Law School professor. “If there’s no gambling, there’s no core business.”

Seigel, who prosecuted crooked NBA referee Tim Donaghy on gambling charges in 2007, said he expected mobsters would come up with new scams, potentially involving cryptocurrencies, such as bitcoin, in an “analog to the penny stocks of the ’90s.”

“I wouldn’t fully count them out, because they are resilient, but it is definitely going to be a blow,” he said.