New Delhi, June 26 -- TRENTON - George "Georgie Neck" Zappola has stood before a judge and said he was guilty once before. That was 1996, in federal court, when he pleaded guilty to several murders, including the 1990 killing of James Bishop, a New Jersey labor official, and accepted a 22-year prison sentence. On Wednesday, he was back in a New Jersey courtroom, a different judge and a different crime, and pleaded guilty to second-degree racketeering for his role in an illegal gambling enterprise that ran from suburban poker clubs to offshore sportsbook websites registered in foreign countries. He is 65. He faces a recommended seven years in state prison.

Zappola was among eight people who entered guilty pleas in New Jersey Superior Cour...