how do private games not get in legal trouble

Ask Tom Goldstein if people get audited for nosebleed poker winnings.

On a serious note, I don't have any firsthand knowledge of that world but I would imagine that they find ways to minimize the amount of electronic means of moving money. Maybe they have monero haha. Maybe someone with better knowledge can help elaborate

he is a huge public figure and used a public company to move money - but fair point.

I mean they do when a player is tied to illegal stuff like Toby’s game. If nothing illegals tied to the money I don’t see why there’d be an issue. Crypto/cash/casino chips are used a lot too I doubt anyone besides the businessman is writing checks and the amount is probably not going to raise any flags coming from an account that has a lot of traffic

Certainly might get you audited. But so can many things. The IRS won't care if the underlying activity is illegal as part of their audit. Unless some of the money is illegal.

Might trigger CTRs or SARs. But again if the money is legit no real issues.

Plus, such a game in NV, might very well be legal. But regardless, that is not what IRS is looking into.

Lots of private games are in casinos where rake is taken. In private homes the authorities don’t have the info or motivation to go after home games unless there is a complaining witness or witnesses, and even then it’s iffy.

In the case of high stakes games like JRB runs, I imagine he takes care of his players very well so if there are complaints they are handled by him. And players want to get invites back.

Lastly I play only mid stakes but frequently withdraw/deposit $10k or more in cash, and tell the bank teller and manager it’s for poker. They never have any issues. I think transfer problems happen when you try to hide what you are doing.

hey i run the most popular game in LA (we avg about 142 players/week). it's a pretty big operation (5000 sq ft, 5 tables, pool table, ping pong etc. etc.)...

but it's CLEAN. no drugs, no hookers, everyone gets patted down. we pay taxes honestly. everything we renovated in our space was done to code (building & safety inspectors, etc). the reason why all of that is important is bc LAPD doesn't give a damn if you're running a game... (it's a $500 misdemeanor and repeat offenses don't stack). they care about drugs, prostitution, firearms, etc... the felonies justify their resources... a bunch of nerds playing poker doesn't.

yes. i spend $7600/month on security. (3 guards every night)

What a shitty paid job, or are those guards actually dogs?

At what point is it +ev to just open a poker room/card club whatever they call the non Indian res poker places in CA? Youre renting commercial space, have 5 tables , a lot of cash on premise or big book out, tons of traffic with all those ppl...

Right on cue:

https://nypost.com/2025/04/11/us-news/nj-politician-lucchese-mobsters-arrested-in-gambling-ring/

New York Post

NJ politician, Lucchese mobster arrested in sprawling gambling ring allegedly ran out of restaurants across state

do you play on credit or do people bring cash in and you have a cage of some sort?

I find this interesting because large amounts of cash and credit both bring their own risks.

they don't issue permits or licenses for those in LA.
there's a handful they've issued decades ago (bike, commerce, players club, hollywood park) and haven't since then.
if one of those licenses went up for sale (there are rumors about players club's being on the market), it would sell for multi multi millions.

we have some super regulars who we tally and settle at the end of the night with...so that's "credit" i guess (like 6 hour credit. ha).
a lot of it is wire. some of it is cash. we run a big table (with a lot of guys from the hustler/bally stream) who will drop off a lump sum every few weeks (a "bank")... that's kept outside of the room.
we also have losers pay winners sometimes (to eliminate extra transactions). at this point, we're really good about balancing the incomings and outgoings (for tax purposes) and general fluency of the accounting.

in general, the room is set up like a social club. pool table, ping pong table, basketball hoop, cornhole, 75 foot bar, 15 TVs, 10 foot projector, smoking room,5 poker tables, etc... a lot of guys come just to hang and watch free UFC pay per views / drink for free etc (there's no obligation to play)... it's really branded as an exclusive homie hangout with poker running in the background. ha. been doing it for 10 years.

Can't be done. California has had a "moratorium" on new licenses for card clubs for a quarter century. The only way to open a new club is to somehow acquire the license of an old one. See, e.g., Casino M8trix taking over the old Garden City license in San Jose.

that's pretty sweet great job feels like rounders

yeah, it's a pretty good energy. im 10 years sober ( and work from home)... the game really started just as a small social outlet for me. grew into something it was never really intended to be tbh.

congrats on sobriety. Are we talking full full sobriety or just your DOC? Im 18 months from the thing that ruined my life, but not fully sober I suppose. Whatever the case, kudos.

**I say the following in good faith and in no way trying to scare you out of what youre doing. None of this is advice(although I do love giving unsolicited advice, sorta my jam) its merely me thinking thru the complexities of the scenario thats been created bc of this game, but in no way am I inferring I know more than you or know your business better than you do.**

I think this only is able to exist bc LA is so big and has so much going on that you've thankfully not gotten the sole of the governments boot on your door yet. Not to ruin the juju youve got going, but if their eyes do happen to fall on you and they pursue.... no bueno. There was a guy running homegames in FL recently that got raided and the way theyre able to frame his game as this 1m(think it was like 980k) windfall all earned via illegal means makes it look so much worst than it is. The way these stories tend to read is they dont understand how a poker game makes money, in theory. They take all movement of funds as rev or even profit and never even mention rake or membership fees. So it becomes a massive number.

They see for example 5 ppl lose 20k, and twist it to be the game operators illegal business makes 200k a night(5 ppl lost 100k, then 100k was earned on other side). This example is sourced straight from my behind but using it to illustrate how they can very quickly tally up sums that will land you under strict sentencing guidelines. The way they're twisting what we consider normal money movement of swapping chips, crypto, etc into money laundering and structuring is a real problem we in the private poker industry need to figure out a solve for.

I've wondered where Gal was running all those slots, and by no means saying you have slots going, Ive never been there/you havent mentioned them/gov prolly confiscated them all anyways but "clubs" like this is likely where he had set them up and hes super screwed. In addition to how f'd in the a he is, all of the ppl he did any business with could run bad and fall on the wrong agents desk. Or if you've got players who dont earn their income on the up and up and are under investigation for xyz, they follow him to your club or he explains why he has 100k cash bc of your game...Just so many ways for this to go sideways and each additional new player adds a new variable.

IMO I would have as close to 0 cash on premise as you possibly can. If they cant be given credit have them write a check and sign it beforehand and give it to you, and when they leave they can write in the amount they owe. Verify they have the funds sitting in an account when youre given the check. Find a way to have as little of the funds touch your accounts as possible while also not being in cash. Have a legit component to the club got its "members" and dont actually rake pots. Or charge a cashout fee to winners and that money funds the club/you. Anything but raking a pot tbh.

As someone with flex warehouse space for my company Im curious what kind of business park this is in? Your neighboring units dont get pissed about parking or anything like that? Weve got this 2500 sq/ft warehouse 500 sq/ft office flex space in a business park and everyone knows everyones business pretty much. Something like this would get identified in a heartbeat , at which point youre at the mercy of their desire to gossip.

And I do get that licensing anything gaming related in CA is near impossible, so my initial suggestion wasnt very practical. But they had to open somehow.. Maybe like in the states with those equity requirements for the ownership of dispos you just gotta go find yourself someone from the Res and bring them in as a partner. You will get denied, but Runs With Wolves could be the difference maker on an application.

Does the fire inspector never come by for checkins? Is your landlord aware this is happening(hopefully he does that reduces your liability I think).

All of this to say I wish you the best. Very ambitious project that seems to have become a nice successful biz for you.

probably the local cops gamble in the games. like off rounders.

I think this is part of it, for sure. The other part is that the laws aren't severe. As stated above, it's a $500 misdemeanor and repeat offenses don't stack (so you can get 'caught' repeatedly and it's just $500 for each offense). I know of games in LA that have been raided, and there's never even any gambling offenses charged (the rap sheet is always drugs, hookers, guns, etc). I struggle to think of an instance where anyone in all of Los Angeles (in my 10 years doing this) has been hit with a 'gambling without a license' charge.

Slots are a completely different set of laws. Anything that is deemed 'unbeatable' and ran through a machine (even a computer) is extremely super insanely more legally severe. They're called 'tap tap' rooms, and almost exclusively gang-ran. I would never touch anything like that.

We run it exactly like a card room/casino (very similarly to the LA casinos, except with significantly more perks and a better venue/vibe). And I welcome a reasonable amount of funds into my account... I want to pay an honest amount of taxes (that reflects the businesses revenue). The only way I was able lease a $10k/month property is by proving the businesses revenue.

We're located in a shopping center (next to the largest chain grocery store in LA and above the largest bank in the world). It's a massive shopping complex with about 500 parking spaces (all underground). It's 5200 sq feet right on Hollywood Blvd. It's really hidden in plain sight.

They do very infrequently (they did about 6 weeks ago)... we just break the tables down (althought they wouldn't care either way tbh). My landlord is extremely hands off. The lease agreement was 30-something pages. He's worth 9-figures, lives about 30 miles away on the beach. His general strategy is to protect every element of himself with the lease agreement, and then not give a damn / be completely hands off.

ALSO...thank you for the kind words!!!

My ex-security guy (for years) was LAPD.
I don't know off-hand of any cops who have played in the room. But, I wouldn't be surprised, in general. There's just SO many other low hanging fruit to focus on (games that are literally ran by gangstas peddling weapons, girls & drugs). There is so much more bang for their buck in busting games like that than mine. That's not to say I'm invincible (we are hyper hyper focused on avoiding any liabilities), but the reality is, that a room like mine doesn't justify their resources as much as the 50000 poker drug-dens in LA do.

What games do you run?

Also, is it a fallacy then that all LA home games have strippers?

All...except mine. Ha. But yeah...that's pretty much true. I'd say hookers moreso than 'strippers'. But 99% of the games are 'lingerie'.

I have a different mindset about the entire thing tbh. I own a marketing company and I approach the game from that angle. There are a lot of restaurant brands on earth...and only one Hooters (and it's bankrupt). The product cant be tits... it just doesn't work in and of itself. In general, my game has always tried to be 'party' enough for the guys leaving the clubs on Saturday nights but mellow enough for guys to bring their wives/girlfriends and have them hang out. Everything from the music, the volume of the music, the attire the servers wear, the way the room is designed, etc. is meant to straddle both of those audiences (without alienating either one).

I'm trying to be the Dave N Busters version of a poker game. (its been very successful up to this point).

We run 2/3, 3/5 and 5/5/10...right now (as I type this) we have two tables of 2/3, one 3/5 and one 5/5/10.