He founded the Gateway Clipper Fleet in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, pioneered riverboat casino gambling along the Mississippi River via his President Casinos empire and founded a fleet of ships operating out of Chelsea Piers in New York City.
[1] In the early 1950s, he founded J. Edward Connelly in Pittsburgh, which pioneered the concept of incentive marketing, or giving away products at banks and supermarkets in order to attract business.
In 1983, Connelly acquired control of World Yacht, a dinner cruise company in New York City founded by Neil Heap and Peter Simonetta in 1969.
[3] In 1981, he acquired the largest excursion ship plying the Mississippi River—the SS Admiral in St. Louis, Missouri from Streckfus Steamers.
He also acquired the excursion boats Huck Finn and Becky Thacher as well as the Robert E. Lee floating restaurant.
In 1990, Connelly acquired the President which was on the National Register of Historic Places in Davenport, Iowa.
Iowa was the first state to legalize riverboat gambling in modern times and the President became one of the first casinos to open.
In 1993 the company entered into an agreement with the St. Regis Mohawk Indian Tribe to develop a land-based casino in the Catskill Mountains in New York.
In 2006, Connelly was the subject of a family battle with his adoptive daughter Audree Wirginis to wrest control of the company on the basis of competence.
Connelly cut the pledge to $7 million and received a contract to exclusively sell reproductions of Vatican art in the United States.
Connelly died of congestive heart failure on May 16, 2009, at his home in Indiana Township, Pennsylvania, north of Pittsburgh.