Tony has a gambling problem, which isn’t too hard to pick out, as he placed three large bets prior to his meeting with Little Carmine, and during a call to Hesch in the last episode, he let us know that he lost all three and wanted a loan for some more bets that weekend. A flashback during a previous season had him as a little boy watching his father and uncle Junior break a guy’s arm, and also cut off Mr. Satrielli’s (sp?) pinkie finger, both over gambling debts. His father was sleeping in a chair when Tony went to get him for dinner. In the short conversation that followed, his father told him to never ever gamble.
I feel that the entire show has been based around the fact that Tony is the most talented for what he does, but deep down he’s never wanted to do it for a living. The panic attacks come from that, with that first blackout he had that very same night his father told him never to gamble. His mother had cooked the standing roast from Satrielli’s that he then realized was free because of the debt the man had piled up to his father. His self-destructive behavior as of late is a sort of shifting from what used to be his major vice, having a woman on the side, to something new.
I may have understated his gambling problem…
If I remember correctly, Johnny Soprano called Satriale a “degenerate bum.”
I think you’re right. It’s from the one season I actually have on DVD, #3 – so it always sticks out most, that episode w/ the Capicolla in his mother’s house while the Russians are yapping away, he gets that memory back.