ziconette

In Philip Roth's I Married a Communist he mentions a gambling game played in the back of a mob-controlled pool hall in the 30s or 40s called ziconette. (In the back of the pool hall, so presumably not a variety of pool, but rather a card game or something.)

Does anyone have any idea what he's thinking of? All that google turns up is other people wondering the same thing.

Intriguing. No luck yet myself finding out exactly what it is, but, while attempting alternate spellings, I did turn up this legal brief from the 80s which keeps mentioning "card games and a 'Zigonnet' game," and which would seem to imply that whatever ziconette/Zigonnet involves, it's not cards.

OK, this is from Google Books. A novel called Bino. The section was only available in "snippet view," so I could only get part of it.
>Once a guy came to me, wanted to set up Zigonnet. It's a game you never heard of, Winnie, fast action. It's dealt out of a box that's made in Italy, and there's only five of 'em in New York. Five families, five boxes. You want to play Zigonnet, you pay the families. You don't pay the families, you get dead.

Zigounette is apparently a French kiddie term for "penis." (One French-English dictionary translates it as "pecker.") I don;'t think I'll pursue that one.

Edited by: nutraxfornerves

It's a stretch, but-- zigonette as a form of baccarat? "Cards are dealt from the special box (shoe) that holds 8 shuffled decks "

On the same note, in another P. Roth's book,named "Goodbye, Columbus" they play "willie-mays". Any idea what it is?
Speaks of "black kids playing in the streets around New Jersey in the 50's"

Willie Mays, greatest baseball player ever. (And it is capital 'W', capital 'M' in the book as well.)

Willie Mays, greatest baseball player ever

No argument here.

I once heard Albert Heath, jazz saxophonist, illustrate how obsessed John Coltrane was with his instrument, by saying that once he mentioned to Coltrane that Willie Mays had hit two home runs the previous day. "Who's Willie Mays?" asked Coltrane. Unbelievable.

Thanks for the research, everybody.

I see references in the decision of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in the case of US v. Zingaro, 858 %. 2d 94. (1982)

The part of the massive indictment1 that alleged Zingaro's particular violations specified four categories of predicate racketeering acts: (1) extortionate extension of credit, 18 U.S.C. Sec. 892 (1982); (2) extortionate collection of credit, 18 U.S.C. Sec. 894 (1982); (3) operation of a sports betting business illegal under New York law, 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1955 (1982); and (4) operation of a card game and "Zigonett" game business illegal under New York law, 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1955. . . . The indictment detailed Zingaro's alleged involvement in Yonkers "social clubs," which offered card games and a "Zigonett" game to players, as well as extortionate loans to cover the players' gambling losses, as the basis both for the predicate racketeering acts and the collection of unlawful debt.

That agrees with zashibis's quote in distinguishing zigonett from card games, which to my mind rules out baccarat.

Yeah, but Vinny, how do you account for "dealt out of a box"?

thank you for the explanation, zashibis, and all.

I guess I hadn't clicked on zashibis's link, which is to the same report of a decision that I discuss at #7. So it isn't independent evidence as I thought. It could be something like a baccarat shoe, nutrax. I bet if the 2nd had had a clear idea of what it was, they would have described it.

In case people don't understand the "five families, five boxes" part of nutrax's quote, for a long time organized crime in New York was dominated by five "families", of which the Gambino family mentioned in the Zingaro case was one.

Another try. Zigonetta. Pennsylvania Folklife Society - 1973

The writer is apparently looking at bocce in (I think) south Philly. This snippet is about private clubs located in old Italian Beneficial Societies. The informant is talking about what his 83 year old father says about why nonmembers are strictly excluded.
>This informant said that there were also fears that an outsider might be a policeman intent upon stopping their gambling games. One gambling game which is played in many of these clubs is zigonetta, a rapid card game of pure chance in which a man might lose hundreds of dollars in a in a few minutes (interview of May 11, 1973).