He was to a father who was an immigrant from San Piero, Sicily and a Polish-American mother in South Philadelphia. In 1964, DelGiorno was 24 and was supplementing his days as a delivery truck driver with a small-time bookmaking and policy operation at night and on weekends. At the time he was just one of hundreds of numbers writers in South Philadelphia chasing after action. He also began hanging out in afterhour clubs and began to socialize with mobsters at card and dice games.