Porrello’s highly entertaining exploration of the gambling world in Cleveland offers us a look at some of the world’s most notorious characters: Shondor Birns, Don King, Dollree Mapp. The book explores one of the most turbulent periods in U.S. history involving the black tradition of lottery gambling, “the numbers,” when it was a multi-million-dollar enterprise.
Reid, Alberico, and Porrello will be producing. Reid and Alberico will direct. Reid and Porrello are the team behind Kill the Irishman, and Superthief. Alberico produced the award-winning documentary War on the Diamond to be released this fall.
“This story combines a dynamite cast of characters against the complex world of boxing and the mob”, said Alberico, a native of Cleveland. “Tommy, Rick, and I have access to an enormous amount of historical content thanks to Rick’s book and his expertise in the underworld of the numbers racket in Cleveland stretching into Miami and New York when boxing was king.”
From Co-Director Tommy Reid, CEO of Dundee Entertainment: “This book is in many ways the prequel to our hit film “Kill the Irishman“, also written by Rick Porrello. Cleveland has such a diverse and interesting crime history in one of my favorite cities in America, and this book needs to be told. I’m extremely excited to partner with Rick again, and we expect great things from this documentary, which already has investors clamoring to be part of it.
