• New Jersey charges target Lucchese-linked pay-per-head betting ring
• Student athletes allegedly acted as agents in gambling network
• Perna family accused of organizing multimillion-dollar illegal sportsbook
  

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A reputed soldier in the Lucchese crime family was one of 14 people arrested Thursday in connection with a pay-per-head illegal gambling operation that allegedly employed student athletes as betting agents.

“Little Joe” Perna, above, comes from a long line of alleged Lucchese New Jersey faction mobsters and has recently passed the mantle to his son Joe Jr., according to state prosecutors. (Image: New Jersey OAG)

Joseph M. “Little Joe” Perna, 55, has been charged with racketeering, conspiracy, gambling offenses, and money laundering, in connection with the operation, which handled $2 million in bets between 2022 and 2024, the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office said in a statement.

Perna was the alleged tip of the triangle, He financed the operation, which “relied on Gen Z gamblers and a network of sub-agents recruited from among Perna’s son’s high school and college friends,” according to the statement.

Joseph R. Perna Jr. was indicted along with his father and is accused of running the daily operations of the sportsbook.

Another son, Anthony R. Perna, 23, was also charged, as was his stepson, Frank Zito, 23, and nephews, Dominic Perna, 23, and Michael Cetta, 23.

What’s Pay Per Head?

A pay-per-head sports-betting operation is an underground bookmaking model where a central bookmaker pays an offshore website a weekly fee for each active bettor, or “head,” they manage.

The offshore site provides the software, betting lines, and online accounts, while local “agents” or “sub-agents” recruit bettors, handle cash payments, settle debts, and pass profits up the chain.

Because the bets are placed through offshore servers but all money changes hands in person, PPH systems let illegal bookmakers run sophisticated online sportsbooks while staying hidden from regulators.

Operation Heat

This is not Little Joe’s first rodeo. He has a documented criminal history that includes a 2005 federal conviction for illegal gambling and a 2016 New Jersey state conviction for first-degree racketeering tied to a Lucchese-linked sports-betting enterprise, for which he was sentenced to ten years in prison.

The 2016 conviction stemmed from charges related to Operation Heat, which alleged the crew ran an illegal gambling enterprise generating an estimated $2.2 billion over 15 months, and smuggled drugs and prepaid cellphones into a New Jersey prison.

“This was truly a family affair,” Matthew Platkin, Attorney General of New Jersey, said in the statement.

“Despite the proliferation of legal betting of all kinds, gambling remains a mainstay of members and associates of organized crime. The locations and methods may have evolved, but illegal gambling – in this case, sports betting – remains a problem, and we will charge those who seek to profit from it,” Platkin added.

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