During his time in the underworld, Antonio Bernardi was widely regarded among the Schenectady Police Department, and local racketeers alike, as its reigning underworld “kingpin.” He was said to have controlled most gambling rackets and other organized criminal activities in that Upstate city from the 1920s until his death from natural causes in July 1950.
Under Tony Bernardi’s guiding hand, Schenectady’s fledgling underworld first expanded into alcohol bootlegging and, later, into a major gambling network that controlled a city-wide horse and sports bookmaking operation, a major policy-numbers racket, as well as backroom casinos offering floating dice and card games and slot machines.
It is also widely acknowledged that an entire future generation of Schenectady’s professional gamblers and racketeers first cut their teeth under Bernardi’s tutelage and underworld expertise as young men.
At the height of his underworld influence, Tony Bernardi’s gambling network was believed to utilize at least one hundred gambling operatives, bookies, numbers runners, and subordinates.
Although he was long acknowledged as Schenectady’s rackets “kingpin” for upwards of three decades, Tony Bernardi was never identified as a member of the Mafia or even a known Mafia “associate” for that matter.
