Bill Cosby Bet Hundreds of Thousands Through Illegal Bookies, Claims Son of Mafia Godfather

Posted on: June 26, 2017, 04:00h. 

Last updated on: June 26, 2017, 01:03h.

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Bill Cosby was an avid sports bettor who squandered hundreds of thousands of dollars betting on the Miami Dolphins in the eighties, according to Chris Colombo, a mafia scion and youngest son of former Mob boss Joseph Colombo.

We agree that this may not be the most heinous allegation leveled at the once-beloved comedian recently, and we also concede Colombo, who spent a year in prison for running a multi-million-dollar illegal bookmaking operation, may not be the most trustworthy source in town.

Still, if anyone would know about illegal bookmaking in New York in the eighties, it might be him. Colombo insists that, at the height of his Cosby Show fame, “Dr Huxtable” was regularly betting $5,000 a game.

He also lost a $20,000 bet on the 1985 Super Bowl XIX, when the San Francisco 49ers thrashed the Dolphins 38-16, claims Colombo.

Cosby’s “Fixer”

The Mafia man says that while he did not personally handle the bets (because that would have been illegal!), he “had knowledge” of them and estimates Cosby lost around $400,000 over several years.

As Cosby might say, zip-zop-zoobity-bop!

Colombo, reminiscing to celebrity gossip website Page Six this week, claimed that the man who actually placed the bets was NBC employee Frank Scotti, who became Cosby’s personal assistant. Scotti would deliver bets to the bookies in the form of bags of cash, according to Colombo, while winnings were returned in the same fashion.

Just before he died in 2015, aged 90, Scotti admitted to the press that he had been Cosby’s “fixer,” during The Cosby Show years, funelling thousands of dollars to women to supply the comedian’s “virtual harem.”

“I felt like a pimp, I felt dirty,” said Scotti, who chose to open up to the Today Show on Monday after 18 women accused his former boss of inappropriate behavior, including alleged drugging and rape.

Scotti made no mention of gambling in these interviews, although it wouldn’t have been particularly relevant to the discussion.

Kinky Pasta Parties

Colombo claims he met Cosby through Sammy Davis Jr in the eighties and was invited to several dinner parties in the star’s dressing room where they ate Italian food and drank $1,000 bottles of wine.

“Bill loved his fine Italian food. Once he sent me in a helicopter to pick up a $1,000 bottle of red wine,” Cosby’s former assistant Christopher Gambale told Page Six. “The dinner parties were always filled with six-foot blond women. When we’d get a call that Cosby’s wife was on her way to the studio, I would bring the women in my office.”

On June 17, the sexual assault case against Cosby in Pennsylvania was declared a mistrial after jurors became hopelessly deadlocked. Prosecutors are seeking a retrial on the same charges.