Anna Peraino, blackjack dealer in Atlantic City
After Anna Castelli Peraino ended her career as a blackjack dealer in Atlantic City in 1999, she still enjoyed going to casinos closer to her home in Philadelphia.
After Anna Castelli Peraino ended her career as a blackjack dealer in Atlantic City in 1999, she still enjoyed going to casinos closer to her home in Philadelphia.
But she never played cards there.
"She didn't think it was a winning proposition," daughter Agnes Peraino said. "She knew a lot of people who lost."
Instead, Agnes Peraino said, "she liked to play Quick Hits, a slot machine."
Rather than going to casinos to win, she said, "she went for the enjoyment."
On Thursday, May 5, Mrs. Peraino, 70, of Voorhees, died of lung cancer at Virtua Voorhees Hospital.
Born in Philadelphia, Mrs. Peraino grew up in the Girard Estates neighborhood near 22d and Wolf Streets, and owned a home there from 1969 to 2000, when she moved to Voorhees.
She was a graduate of South Philadelphia High School.
In the 1980s, she and her husband, Joseph Sr., moved to Reno, Nev., where he became a poker dealer in one casino and she became a blackjack dealer in others.
"She was taught by a friend of my father's," Agnes Peraino said, "and earned her dealer's license."
Mrs. Peraino worked at what are now Club Cal Neva, Western Village Inn & Casino, and the Eldorado Resort Casino, all in Reno.
When a relative's illness drew her back to her home in Girard Estates, Mrs. Peraino began a workday commute in the early 1990s to Trump casinos in Atlantic City, her daughter said, where "she was a blackjack dealer and a pit boss at one time, because of her experience."
Driving was a challenge, her daughter said, "but that's what she wanted to do."
In 1999, while walking from her car to a casino bus near Atlantic City, "she slipped on the ice," her daughter said, and a scan of her back found cancer of her right lung, which was removed.
In 2007, cancer was found in her other lung and was treated with radiation. But she still made her visits to Philadelphia-area casinos.
Rui Silva, an electrical designer and friend of Agnes Peraino's, said he went to casinos with Mrs. Peraino several times, where, he said, "she could sit down at a machine and enjoy herself for hours on end."
Given her illness, Silva said, "she was a walking, talking, living inspiration and example of how not to give up. She was incredible."
Besides her daughter, Mrs. Peraino is survived by daughter Pamela Buzzetto, two brothers, two sisters, four grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren. Her husband died in 2014.
A remembrance service is set for 7 p.m. Monday, May 16, at Tori's Bistro, 1218 Chews Landing Rd., Laurel Springs.
Donations may be sent to the American Cancer Society at www.cancer.org/donate.
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