John Edward Connelly, the coal miner turned self-made tycoon who founded the Gateway Clipper Fleet and promised millions from his fortune to needy people and causes, died yesterday at his home in Indiana Township. He was 83.

Mr. Connelly, a king of riverboat gambling and supermarket promotions, died of congestive heart failure, his grandson, Terry Wirginis said.

A larger-than-life figure who made a fortune as an entrepreneur, Mr. Connelly created riverboat dining cruises here, in New York and St. Louis, and pioneered riverboat gambling on the Mississippi River through his entertainment empire, President Casinos. He once owned the Sheraton Station Square Hotel and sought to bring casino gambling to Pittsburgh.

"I've been a winner all my life," Mr. Connelly told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 1996. "I come from the school of 'done it,' not 'going to do it.' I believe in winning."

Mr. Connelly was a devout Roman Catholic who pledged millions to church causes and had exclusive rights to market Vatican merchandise. His faith helped to carry him through rough years when severe financial setbacks left him unable to fulfill large pledges he had made to the Catholic Church and other institutions.

"He always said he came into this world naked and he wanted to leave naked, and boy he tried his best," said Henry Gusky of Mt. Lebanon, his friend and lawyer since 1974. "He just kept on giving his money away."

Mr. Connelly was the oldest son in a poor Pittsburgh family who went to work at 16 to support his siblings after his parents died.

He lied about his age to get a job in a coal mine but quit after a fellow miner was killed while working the same shift, Mr. Wirginis said. To earn money, Mr. Connelly was a Golden Gloves boxer, once boasting that he won 12 of his 13 matches. His nickname in the ring was "Twinkle Toes."

"He was the toughest guy I ever knew," Mr. Wirginis said. "His capacity for work even as a youth was just amazing."

He never went to college, but worked instead as a newspaper editor in Sharpsburg, where he met his wife, Josephine, who died in 1996. Mr. Connelly adopted Josephine's five children and "took them on as his own," Mr. Wirginis said.

Mr. Connelly made his first million dollars by supplying banks with dinnerware that they could use to lure new depositors, his grandson said. Fortune Magazine once called him "the godfather of make-a-deposit, get-a-toaster bank marketing."

"He was always figuring out ways to use his brain," Mr. Wirginis said. "He was always looking for business ideas. He was so bright and so motivated."

His shrewd business sense made him a millionaire who was seen by some competitors as a bare-knuckled, cut-throat capitalist.

In the 1950s, his growing interest in the potential of the city's rivers prompted him to launch the venture for which he perhaps was best known in the region. As treasurer of the Allegheny County Sanitary Authority, Mr. Connelly sought to improve the city's once-polluted rivers and their image.

In 1958, he purchased the first of five excursion boats that would make up his popular Gateway Clipper Fleet, providing prom, party and wedding cruises for generations of Western Pennsylvanians. For decades, the distinctive boats have been part of the city landscape while plying the rivers or docking at Station Square on the Monongahela River.

"Nobody thought it was going to work," Mr. Wirginis said. "And you see what we have down there today."

Mr. Connelly later introduced Las Vegas-style action to the heartland by bringing blackjack and craps to Iowa on a riverboat. He formed President Casinos and pioneered gambling in the Midwest in the early 1990s, and was once on the Forbes magazine list of 400 wealthiest Americans.

In 1996, he told the Post-Gazette: "A reporter asked me, 'Mr. Connelly, when did you discover that you have a love affair with rivers?' I said, 'I don't have a love affair with rivers. I have a love affair with a five-letter word -- M-O-N-E-Y.' "

In the mid-1990s, however, the price of President stock tumbled as more Las Vegas-based gambling companies entered the world of riverboat gambling.

Despite his many successes, his life was dotted with lawsuits and missteps that sometimes made him a controversial figure.

Late in his life, his mental fitness was the subject of a yearlong court case. In 2006, Mr. Connelly fought a judge's ruling that he was mentally incapacitated in a battle that pitted him against adopted daughter Audree Wirginis-Swartzlander. Ms. Wirginis and her son, Terry, ultimately displaced him as chairman of President Casinos.

In 1986, Mr. Connelly developed "Apples for the Students,'' a computer giveaway program used by Giant Eagle supermarkets and other firms. The supermarkets provided computers to schools that could not afford them in exchange for cash-register tapes of customer purchases.

Louis Astorino, an architect and friend for 25 years, said Mr. Connelly shared his wealth through donations or pledges to Catholic schools and colleges as an extension of his faith.

"If he made a pledge, you could count on him. If he had the money, he would give it," Mr. Astorino said. "Pledges were made that he couldn't fulfill, but it wasn't his fault."

His generosity caught the attention of the Vatican. When Pope John Paul II proposed building a hotel to house cardinals during papal elections and visiting clergy at other times, Mr. Connelly was asked to lead the global fundraising campaign.

"I can honestly tell you I have never met anybody like him in my entire life," Mr. Gusky said. "There has never been another person like John."

Mr. Connelly is survived by a brother, Eugene Connelly of Upper St. Clair; a sister, Dorothy Cline of Titusville, Fla.; one daughter, Audree Wirginis-Swartzlander of Sarver; three sons, Robert Connelly and Roderick Connelly, both of Indiana Township, and Regis Connelly of Hampton; and 13 grandchildren.

Funeral arrangements are pending with Frank R. Perman Funeral Home in Shaler.