No more bets. The game of life is over for a venerable Brooklyn wiseguy, Peter (Petey 17) Piacenti. A longtime Gambino soldier who focused primarily on games of chance during his chosen career, Piacenti (right) cashed in his chips last week at age 85. 

Like most of his mob life, his passing – he was buried on Saturday – was little noticed as his widow, children, other family members, neighbors, and many wiseguy friends and associates paid their respects at the Aievoli Funeral Home in Bensonhurst. 

Nearly 30 years ago, Piacenti earned the undying respect of mob peers. That’s when he lived to tell about the storied slayings of father and son mobsters, but didn’t, not publicly, anyway. He didn’t, even though he was dragged unknowingly into the killings, was wounded in a follow-up shootout with a cop, and, in a historic case, was tried for murder while laying on a hospital gurney. 

On October 1, 1979, Petey 17 was one of five Gambino mobsters crammed into a white Thunderbird when all of a sudden, two of them shot Jimmy The Clam Eppolito and his son James Jr. The shooters pulled their weapons earlier than planned. They had been ordered to kill the Eppolitos by then-boss Paul Castellano, but acted before they got to the intended murder scene when the elder Eppolito became suspicious.

As the Eppolitos lay bleeding to death, one gunman, Roy DeMeo, escaped. The second gunman, capo Anthony (Nino) Gaggi, and Petey 17 scampered in another direction, but both were shot and wounded by an off-duty housing cop

moonlighting for a car service. The cop had been alerted to the shooting by a passer-by, according to court records.

The following year, Gaggi, (right) who had recovered from his wounds, and Piacenti, (left) who hadn’t – years later he would win $175,000 for lousy hospital treatment that left him with a permanent limp – went to trial in Brooklyn Supreme Court. In those proceedings, for the first time in more than 30 years, jurors were sequestered for an entire trial.

Piacenti was convicted of misdemeanor charges, served eight months behind bars, and steered clear of crowded car rides and prison for the rest of his life. DeMeo, who was never charged, was shot to death three years later. Gaggi, who was convicted of assault, which was later reversed, died of a heart attack in 1988 while incarcerated on a fraud rap.

Five years ago, Piacenti was arrested on charges more befitting the longtime gambler – being part of a ring that placed Joker Poker machines in about 20 New York area bars and restaurants that brought in $5000 a week.

His first arrest, in 1947, was also for gambling. Police at the time said he was part of a ring that raked in $5 million a week by selling tickets on the “Italian Lottery,”

a weekly lottery that the Italian Government began running in the 1800s.

The two cases, more than half a century apart, shared an amazing but coincidental fact: in each, he was one of 17 defendants.

But Petey 17 – his nickname derived not from the number of defendants in the gambling cases, but from the name (The 1717 Club) of a nightclub he once ran at 1717 86^th St. in Bensonhurst – was much more than a gambler.

More than a year before Pearl Harbor, in September, 1940, according to Marine Corps Captain Teresa Ovalle, Piacenti joined the Marines. He was a Marine Corps sergeant in the first U.S. general offensive operation of World War II, which resulted in the capture of a Japanese airfield at Gaudalcanal in the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific. That piece of history comes from the lawyer who represented him in his 2002 gambling case, Richard Willstatter. Piacenti got neither prison nor probation, but was merely dunned $100 in court costs.

The lawyer recalled his client fondly, evoking the image of Richard Conte playing the wise-cracking Brooklyn-born machine gun-toting “Rivera” in a “A Walk in the Sun," a 

1945 movie that also starred Lloyd Bridges, John Ireland and Dana Andrews.

“He was like all those guys you used to see in the war movies, playing the guy from Brooklyn,” said Willstatter. “But he was real, he carried a Tommy gun. He saw action, he was a combat veteran, and it was not a pleasant experience for him.”

The lawyer would not discuss a 1951 drug conviction on Piacenti’s rap sheet – for which Petey 17 served two years in prison, according to federal prison records – saying it was “ancient history” and not a true measure of the man.

“I always thought he was a nice guy, very pleasant, and very tangentially involved in the (Peter) Gotti matter,” said Willstatter, referring to the lead defendant (right) in the 2002 case. “He was an old man; he enjoyed doing the boring things that we do when we get old.”

Two of Piacenti’s daughters said they were reluctant to discuss their father with Gang Land. When pressed, one said: “The legacy he left for his grandchildren who adored him is one of love. They knew him from the inside out and they loved him dearly. He was a wonderful father and grandfather.” 

Gambino soldier George Remini, (left) who was caught in several memorable tape-recorded conversations with John Gotti, Castellano’s successor as family boss, and who spent a year in prison for refusing to testify about them, also died last week. He was 61.

Remini, whom law enforcement sources described as an active mobster under acting capo Carmine Sciandra, was in Gotti’s social club in Ozone Park, Queens, when the late Dapper Don was overheard boasting about his prowess as a leader and the good things that were yet to come under his reign.

“With a year run without being interrupted, we’re going to put this thing together where they could never break it, never destroy it, even if we die,” said Gotti.

“It’s a helluva legacy to leave,” replied Remini. 

The Justice Department sure didn’t waste any time in taking out a contract on onetime acting Bonanno boss, Vincent (Vinny Gorgeous) Basciano.

Soon after he flunked a court approved lie detector test regarding an alleged plot to kill three witnesses, as well as the prosecutor and judge in his last trial, the feds took out a legal murder contract on Vinny Gorgeous. As Gang Land reported last week, Basciano (right) hoped the test would convince the feds that the multiple murder plot allegations were “preposterous.”

The bad news came in a letter from Assistant U.S. attorney John Buretta.

Defense attorney Ephraim Savitt claimed that the decision to seek the death penalty at an upcoming trial was a foregone conclusion that was likely made before the government learned that his client flunked the polygraph test that was administered last Thursday.

Even so, Vinny Gorgeous would probably have been better off passing the test.

Reviews of the first two episodes of The Sopranos began appearing online and in the newspapers last week. For a special pre-season scouting report that Gang Land filed last month, check out The New York Sun's online edition.