22mil seized in illegal gambling clubs!
Officials raided 45 locations in total across the Houston area, including 30 alleged illegal gaming rooms with names like "El Portal" and "Yellow Building."
Ganjei says the raids were the result of a five-year "Operation Double Down" operation involving multiple agencies. Officials were executing 85 warrants and a 37-count indictment against 16 suspects.
In addition to the arrests, officials seized over 2,000 illegal slot machines, eight firearms, "numerous high-end vehicles," 100 Rolex watches, $4.5 million in cash, and $6.5 million from accounts and other financial institutions.
Anyone in the poker community picked up? They didn’t touch any of those rooms but imo it’s a bad bad sign for poker in TX.
Houston is the butthole or Texas and will ruin not only poker but gambling in the state overall.
5 Replies
22m across 45 rooms is insane - that’s 500k float per room on average
Yep I lived there for about 8 years and played a lot and the amount of degenerate activities I’ve seen from these people. The guy took a chance at it maybe thought with paying off the cops(undercover FBI) he would be okay. The money to be made would tempt most people if they had the ability.
I hope nothing happens to poker in texas, but I dont think there's too much to worry about here seeing as they were using slot machines - as far as Im aware as long as the poker rooms dont take a rake they're alright
I hope nothing happens to poker in texas, but I dont think there's too much to worry about here seeing as they were using slot machines - as far as Im aware as long as the poker rooms dont take a rake they're alright
That is the position many take but the reality is it is far more uncertain. The applicable laws depend a multipart test. And rake is not mentioned in any those.
The laws have not been tested for these rooms but the Houston rooms are not making it easy. Many, in fact most, now are raking pots which will almost certainly violate existing laws. Then they are serving alcohol. This pushes against other gambling laws AND adds alcohol laws.
Private places exception is critical for the rooms. Even without serving, there are some arguments that some of these rooms do not meet the definition of a private place. But when they serve alcohol, those private place claims become more tenuous because nightclubs and taverns cannot be private places.
It also brings another agency and their regs with jurisdiction. And TABC is generally tough gambling with some strict regs.
Then there is the whole no economic benefit argument that they want to claim is addressed by no rake.
TLDR, don’t depend upon the no rake argum3nt to ensure the TX rooms are legal, if and when they are eventually challenged and decided, probably at the court of criminal appeals.
If anything does ever come down to significantly impact the rooms, the underground games and runners will be happy. I have a few buddies just waiting for it to happen (because they lost all of their business). I would say of the 5-6 rooms that are publicly operating at least half of them were started or managed by the underground proprietors. The police were never raiding the private 1/2 and 2/5 games or the weekly tourney spots in Houston while I was there. You are also likely safer in the private games than these strip mall spots.
