Lodge Card Club Raided / Grand Jury does not indict any Lodge employees

He always played orc when I played him

If polk pays out it's nothing like FT.

And shady **** goes on in every poker room in the country.

If some people were laundering money and everyone gets payed out even if the room is closed it's nothing like Lederer and Ferguson.

You seriously think most poker players give a **** about people laundering money?

I think it depends on what the circumstances are. If Doug knowingly assisted in money laundering, yes, I think most people would care and it would tarnish/ruin his reputation.

And yes, if he is involved and people lose money as a result of the bust without being made right (hard to do if your finances are seized by the government and you’re locked behind bars, regardless of whatever assurance posted on X), I think people would care to the point of giving him pariah status.

And imagine the backlash if stuff trickles down on Brad or Andrew. They’re far less polarizing figures than Doug and IF he was involved and they get rolled for it as part owners, people REALLY won’t appreciate that.

I mean, criminal activity may not be a big deal in your book but if it was happening and he was involved, it would certainly tarnish his reputation in my eyes. And I guarantee I’m not alone with that.

lol pariah in poker let's get serious for a moment

even if Doug gets arrested, convicted, spends 2 years in a federal camp and stiffs every customer in sight, the house will be packed during the grand reopening with the 10 ft "Welcome back Doug" banner hanging from the rafters

Ok, why?

Let’s hypothetically, and I by no means am accusing him of anything, but let’s suppose hypothetically he “stiffs every customer in sight” and serves two years, why would he be welcomed back but Ferguson and Lederer were not?

What’s the difference there other than the volume of players impacted by shenanigans?

no one is rolling out a red carpet for Ferguson and Lederer but to my knowledge they are not banned from WSOP and simply choose not to show up, people are still riding Ivey's nuts even though he was just as complicit as them in what happened at FTP

there are numerous threads about scammers in this very section, pretty much all of them continue to play unimpeded sans some infrequent 10-30 sec interactions with aggrieved parties

there are maybe 5 people in the entire world who can potentially be considered poker pariahs, it's not really a thing

cliffs: no one cares

Obviously if people aren't made whole it's like the FTP scandal. If Doug pays everyone then it's not even close.

This is going to shock you but every single casino in the country and every single poker room that has meaningful stakes has people laundering money. It's also going to shock you that tons of poker players either don't pay their taxes properly or play in illegal home games. But yea they care if some whales launder money dumping through poker lmao.

Are you alone? Probably not. But you'd be in the extreme minority. As long as everyone gets paid out his reputation is going to be fine. That's the most important thing in the gambling world.

So is Doug more like Walter White or Jesse Pinkman?

Probably more like the Hawk Tua girl. Found a stupid niche and got famous, got invited to put his name on stuff, didn't realize it's complicated, now in trouble.

It sounds like we’re in agreement if he pays. You just sound like you’re far more convinced he will than I am (again, assuming something happened, he was involved, and he needs to pay people back).

I think his reputation will still be tarnished, but not made to be a pariah, if thats the case.

well in that case I need a definition of community support from you

do I think his tweets will receive fewer likes if he doesn't make everyone whole? maybe

does he lose a potential invite or two to some stream or a private game? probably

is his poker room business going to be affected in any meaningful way? absolutely not

plenty of people aren't huge fans of Doug already, me included - a few more thousand people not liking Doug isn't going to change much in the grand scheme of things

in any case we're participating in a largely pointless theoretical discussion since whatever amount of money is involved here is a drop in a bucket for him

Any chance this is related to Rampage and the clubs he was running on the apps a few years ago?

One shady character in the operation to bring it all tumbling down. SM.

I doubt it. Rampage didn't invest until early 2025 as far as I can tell, and Splash Squad was years before his involvement with The Lodge. And I don't think Rampage has been all that active/involved on-site either.

If he pays he isn't losing any support. If he doesn't then his name is mud.

It is Texas where the government loves telling you what you can and can’t do. Despite thinking they’re living the American dream, Texans have less personal liberties than other Americans.

Seems like Doug is handling this as best as he can and if it comes out that the issue wasn’t directly related to him I doubt his reputation gets tarnished much.

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Not saying this is the intent but very good reasons to go after Lodge. If TABC shuts down largest room that is one of the cleaner ones and it sticks, what do you think happens in those smaller and def illegal rooms?

Maybe very publically they want to establish the true social club seat fee model is fine but pot raking isn’t.

Still leaves the challenges for legal tournament poker

Another reason to go after the biggest. What if it truly is just money laundering but no house involvement. A reputable room would also be following CTR and SAR regs. So if players were laundering, wo house involvement, big clean rooms are the best targets.

That seems like literally the worst method of operations for TABC and I would highly highly doubt it. Why would you take the hardest case on possible to win in court vs being able to roll into multiple rooms, confiscate everything, know you're gonna win 100% and be able to keep 100% of the money

Even the customers in the illegal places would have no real recourse to get their money back as they're participating in clearly illegal gambling games

Also if you're running an illegal room it's not like you will just shut down bc they hit The Lodge, you just might change locations or go more underground or figure it's the risk of doing business for as long as you can. The illegal rooms already are aware they're running completely illegal games and at the most risk

You take on the biggest cleanest to deter any more of them opening (even if charges don’t stick), state probably doesn’t worry about small more illegal operations as they sputter out quickly. Knowing big money people, if laundering, are not going to risk a bunch of money in a room that doesn’t have that kind of action flowing.

As someone who is familiar with CTR/Title31, this is 100% going to come down to paperwork that was probably being done for the big games streamed and off stream. If you can’t tell who was moving around illegal money in those streamed games then you don’t have much real life poker experience.

Not incognito, he came back and won 2017 WSOP POY actually. Hasn’t been seen lately I’ll give you that.

This would actually be a textbook example of laundering illegal funds. Drug money doesn't stop being drug money because its a couple of years old

I have serious doubts this has anything to do with Rampage though

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29/ne...

I asked questions about Doug's AML compliance practices years ago...

4 years later, I guess I am vindicated. I hope everyone gets their money back.

This is exactly what I was afraid of... and why I stayed away from these rooms.