STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The search continues for a Dongan Hills man who vanished four days before the Super Bowl -- and now police sources tell the Advance that investigators are looking into whether his disappearance is connected to a high-stakes betting pool he ran.

John Kambakakis had run a Super Bowl pool for many years, and may have been carrying a "large amount of money" at the time of his disappearance, sources said.

Kambahakis, a father of two, was seen around 8 a.m. Wednesday outside of the 7-Eleven on Seaview Avenue and Hylan Boulevard, not far from his home on Cromwell Avenue, and then again at 10 a.m. at Mike Hinsch's diner at 8518 5th Ave. in Brooklyn, his daughter, Kristina, told the Advance.



Kambakakis was friends with the diner's owner, spoke with the owner's son, and he was shown on surveillance footage from the restaurant at that time, she said. He was wearing a black Carhartt hooded jacket.



No one has seen him since, his daughter said said.



Kambakakis' disappearance has sparked several days of searches by family members, friends and members of the Port Richmond Community Emergency Response Team.

A Facebook page has been created to help organize the grassroots effort to locate him.

One person who emailed the Advance and requested anonymity and SILive.com commenters who claimed to have knowledge of the pool estimated it was for $20,000-$25,000 and included many employees of Staten Island University Hospital in Ocean Breeze, where Kambakakis was a popular employee until retiring last year.



Another person, a former co-worker, feared that his traditional pool could have possibly made him a target.



"It's a shame, he's a good guy but he always carried a lot of money on him and people knew it, so we're thinking the worst," the former co-worker said.



His daughter Kristina said she was unaware of the pool and the possibility he was carrying a lot of money on him as a result.



"I don't think so, but people are saying that," she said. "I don't know. There's a lot of things going around, different stories, some of them are ridiculous so I really can't listen to them."



-- John Annese, Maura Grunlund and Kristen Dalton contributed to this report.