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100 free Mafia trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
45 free Mafia trivia questions with answers. How well do you really know the mob? This Mafia trivia quiz runs from the origins of Cosa Nostra in Sicily to the Five Families of New York, the Chicago Outfit, the Las Vegas years and the informants and RICO prosecutions that broke the old bosses. Capone, Luciano, Lansky, Siegel, Gotti and Whitey Bulger all get their turn, and so do the films and shows the mob inspired, from The Godfather and Goodfellas to The Sopranos. It works as mob trivia for a quiz night, a warm-up before a rewatch, or a test of whether you can tell the real history from the Hollywood version. Difficulty ratings are shown so you can pick easy openers or the genuine stumpers. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia and its cited sources, and each question carries its citation.
30 of 100 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is the traditional code of silence that is a fundamental part of Mafia honor?
Omertà
Omertà is an unwritten code of silence that dictates members must never reveal any information about Mafia activities or members to authorities or outsiders. Violating omertà results in severe repercussions, often including death.
Q 02What charge finally sent Al Capone to prison in the 1930s?
Tax evasion
Tax evasion. Capone was convicted in October 1931 on five counts of federal income-tax evasion and sentenced to 11 years, a case built by Treasury agents rather than on his bootlegging or killings.
Q 03Which two New York Mafia bosses fought the early-1930s Castellammarese War?
Joe Masseria and Salvatore Maranzano
Joe Masseria and Salvatore Maranzano fought the 1930–31 Castellammarese War; Masseria was shot dead in a Coney Island restaurant in April 1931 and Maranzano was murdered that September.
Q 04What 1970 U.S. federal law was a significant tool for prosecuting organized crime figures?
RICO Act
The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO Act) was enacted in 1970 and has been instrumental in allowing prosecutors to target and dismantle organized crime syndicates by focusing on patterns of criminal activity.
Q 05On which Mediterranean island is the Mafia organization widely believed to have originated?
Sicily
The Sicilian Mafia, also known as Cosa Nostra, is an Italian criminal society and organization originating on the island of Sicily, dating back to the mid-19th century.
Q 06Who set up 'The Commission' in 1931 to govern the American Mafia by vote?
Lucky Luciano
Lucky Luciano created the Commission in 1931 after Maranzano's murder, replacing the 'boss of all bosses' with a ruling panel of the five New York families plus Chicago's Al Capone and Buffalo's Stefano Magaddino.
Q 07What was the Gambino crime organisation originally called when the Five Families were set up in 1931?
Mangano
Vincent Mangano ran it from 1931 until he disappeared in 1951, allegedly on the orders of his underboss Albert Anastasia.
Q 08Which director created The Godfather trilogy?
Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola directed 'The Godfather' (1972), 'The Godfather Part II' (1974), and 'The Godfather Part III' (1990), films widely acclaimed for their depiction of a fictional Mafia family.
Q 09In an American Mafia family, the head is called 'the Don' or by what other nickname?
Godfather
Godfather. The boss of an American Mafia family is the Don or Godfather; beneath him sit the underboss and the consigliere, while capos each run a crew of soldiers.
Q 10The 1980s 'Pizza Connection' trial exposed a heroin ring run through pizzerias, linking the Sicilian Mafia to which US city's crime families?
New York City
New York City, where the trial ran 17 months in Manhattan federal court, one of the longest in US history, with Rudy Giuliani's office prosecuting. The pizza parlours were fronts for moving heroin and cash.
Q 11Joseph Valachi's 1963 Senate testimony first publicly acknowledged which organization?
La Cosa Nostra
La Cosa Nostra. Valachi, serving life for killing a fellow inmate in 1962, told the Senate's McClellan Committee in October 1963 that the organization called itself 'Cosa Nostra', the first member ever to do so publicly.
Q 12Which Murder, Inc. hitman turned informer in 1941, then died falling from a Coney Island hotel window while under police guard?
Abe 'Kid Twist' Reles
Abe 'Kid Twist' Reles, 'the canary who could sing but couldn't fly', as the papers put it. His testimony sent several members to the electric chair; the group is believed to have carried out 400 to 1,000 killings.
Q 13In which year was Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa, who vanished in July 1975, declared legally dead?
Q 21Which Chicago gang leader retired in 1925 and handed his operation to Al Capone?
Johnny Torrio
Johnny Torrio. After North Side gunmen nearly killed him in January 1925, Torrio retired and handed the Chicago Outfit to his 26-year-old protégé Al Capone.
Q 22A famous 1957 mob summit was raided by police in which small New York town?
Apalachin
Apalachin. On November 14, 1957, state troopers raided Joseph Barbara's estate at 625 McFall Road in Apalachin, and some 60 mafiosi were detained as others fled through the woods in their suits.
Q 23Under the RICO Act, how many years in prison can each count carry?
Up to 20
1982
1982, seven years on, the traditional waiting period for a missing person. His body has never been found, and FBI wiretaps caught mobsters refusing to discuss the hit even in private.
Q 14Angelo Bruno, murdered in 1980 after 21 peaceful years as boss, ran which East Coast city?
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, where Bruno was known as 'the Gentle Don' for keeping the peace, and where his shotgun murder set off a war for succession. The Commission had installed him in 1959.
Q 15Per the OED, the Mafia's code of silence may take its name from a rare Spanish word meaning what?
Manliness
A rival theory traces it to the Latin humilitas, 'humility', though the word's geographical spread does not support that well.
Q 16In which year was mob boss Louis 'Lepke' Buchalter executed at Sing Sing?
1944
1944. Buchalter, convicted of ordering the 1936 killing of garment trucker Joseph Rosen, died in Sing Sing's electric chair on 4 March 1944, the only major American mob boss ever executed.
Q 17Which of New York's Five Families was originally known by the name Gagliano?
Lucchese
Lucchese. Tommy Gagliano ran the family quietly from 1931 until his death in 1951, when his underboss Tommy Lucchese took over and the family was renamed for him.
Q 18Frank Lucas, who inspired 'American Gangster', operated mainly in which New York neighborhood?
Harlem
Frank Lucas was an American drug lord who operated in Harlem, New York City, during the late 1960s and early 1970s. He was known for establishing a direct drug pipeline from Southeast Asia.
Q 19In the Sicilian Mafia, what is a 'mandamento'?
A district of several neighbouring families
A district of several neighbouring families. A mandamento groups roughly three adjacent Mafia families under a capomandamento, who holds a seat on the provincial commission above the individual family bosses.
Q 20Sociologist Diego Gambetta famously described the Sicilian Mafia as a cartel of what?
Private protection firms
Private protection firms. In The Sicilian Mafia: The Business of Private Protection (1993), Gambetta cast mafiosi as sellers of protection where the state fails to enforce contracts, with criminals as their most reliable clients.
Up to 20 years. Each RICO count carries a maximum 20-year sentence, or life where the underlying racketeering act itself allows life, plus forfeiture of any property gained through the enterprise.
Q 24Which nickname did John Gotti earn after three 1980s trials ended in acquittals?
The Teflon Don
The Teflon Don, because charges never stuck through three acquittals between 1986 and 1990. The coating wore off in April 1992, when a jury needed about fourteen hours to convict him on every count.
Q 25Gambino boss Paul Castellano was shot dead in December 1985 outside which Manhattan restaurant?
Sparks Steak House
Sparks Steak House on East 46th Street, where Castellano and underboss Thomas Bilotti were gunned down on 16 December 1985 as they arrived for dinner; John Gotti's crew organised the hit.
Q 26Which underboss turned state's evidence in November 1991 and testified against John Gotti?
Sammy Gravano
Sammy 'the Bull' Gravano, Gotti's underboss, admitted nineteen murders yet entered witness protection after testifying in 1992, then blew his cover running an ecstasy ring in Arizona, where he was arrested in 2000.
Q 27John Gotti died in 2002 in a federal prison medical centre in which state?
Missouri
Missouri. Gotti died of throat cancer at 61 on 10 June 2002 in the federal prison medical centre at Springfield, Missouri, ten years into the life sentence imposed in 1992.
Q 28Al Capone's 'Scarface' nickname came from a knife attack by whose brother?
A woman he had insulted
A woman he had insulted: Frank Galluccio slashed Capone three times across the left cheek at Coney Island's Harvard Inn after Capone made a crude remark about Galluccio's sister Lena.
Q 29How many victims died in the St. Valentine's Day Massacre of 1929?
Seven
Seven. Gunmen dressed as police lined up seven men linked to Bugs Moran's North Side Gang against a garage wall at 2122 North Clark Street, Chicago, on 14 February 1929 and machine-gunned them.
Q 30Capone was moved to which newly opened federal penitentiary in August 1934?
Alcatraz
Alcatraz. The island prison in San Francisco Bay took its first federal inmates in August 1934, and Capone arrived on 22 August that month, one of its earliest and most famous prisoners; he left in January 1939.