@Rush I have to check some of my old texts but I remember that during the second conflict from the 1940s, Lake County was under the former North Side crew but when they lost the war, the Fischettis instantly entered the area and opened up some clubs with gambling ops, such as the Vernon Hills Country Club. On top of that, Rocco Fish allegedly bought a lot of land, and I think that one part was later re-sold to some college university or something like that.

Later, Amato and Kruse mostly had gambling ops in that area, but during the mid and late 60s most of their ops were completely destroyed by the feds (thanks to secret mob informant and Kruse's personal friend Ralph Pierce). By the early 70s Rocco was already long dead and Kruse lost most of his interests, thus becoming personal messenger for Alex and the rest of the bosses, and also oversaw the money from Vegas. So, Amato remained the only guy in that area who in turn became easy target for the Buccieri-Torello-Cicero crew. As for their operations, as you already said, it came down mostly to poker machines and card games.

Some files....

Rocco was the capo, not Les....