Libertarian ping! To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here
Posted on 01/16/2008 4:35:09 PM PST by SubGeniusX
Police in San Mateo County, California apparently first spent months investigating the small-stakes poker game. From this firsthand account, it looks like a couple of the officers were playing regularly for several weeks before sending in the SWAT team, guns drawn, last week. If California is like most states (and I believe it is), a poker game is only illegal if the house is taking a rake off the top. In this case, it looks like that "rake" was the $5 the extra the hosts asked from each buy-in to pay for pizza and beer.
Police also took a 13-year-old girl out of the home, away from her parents, and turned her over to child protective services. In addition to the charge of running an illegal gambling operation, the hosts are also charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Good thing the poor girl was saved before slouching toward an inevitable life of crime.
I'm not quite sure I understand this part, either:
A background check on the house's residents led officers to a Web site advertising weekly poker games. The Web site was used to lure "unwitting" participants to the tournaments, which required a $25 to $55 buy-in with an extra $5 "refreshment" fee, according to the report.
How does an advertisement for a small-stakes poker game "unwittingly lure" someone? Did they think the game was free? If they did, was there something preventing them from simply leaving if they didn't want to pay the buy-in?
This account suggests the police hinted to individual players that the hosts may have been cheating or defrauding them, though that's not apparent in the news accounts. Firsthand accounts on poker sites have only good things to say about the hosts. Of course, even if the hosts were cheating, it wouldn't justify a full-on raid, particularly in mid-tournament. The SWAT tactics seem more like intimidation. Raiding in mid-tournament also ensures there's a $1,300 pot to seize for the sheriff department's general fund.
Finally, the San Mateo Daily Journal includes this helpful note:
The San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office encourages citizens to report instances of heavy foot traffic, frequent visitors and illegal parking in residential areas by calling its anonymous tip line...
Mustn't be much crime in San Mateo.
MORE: Check the comments for posts from poker players at the raid.
From: Ksnydersj’s Weblog - Reno 911 (The home game)
Ok, today sucked in a major way. Here’s the scoop!
At approximately 2:30pm PST, San Mateo County Sheriffs Dept raids our home game (it was the season ending freeroll tourney). 10+ armed (and some heavily protected) officers stormed into the home where we play a majority of our home games. 20 of us were there for the freeroll tourney. They asked if anyone had weapons, instructed us to keep our hands on the table where they could be seen, immediately asked for specific individuals, told us that we’d each be interviewed separately, and then would be free to leave.
(more)
From: Pokersoup.com - San Francisco Poker Meetup Group Busted!
This is my post about the San Francisco Bay Area Poker Meetup Group's end of the season freeroll, which we track results for on PokerSoup.com.
So we're about 30 minutes into playing the freeroll when things get interesting. I started on the button, and I folded my first 6 hands, which consisted of some terrible cards as well as A9 and A7. I decided not to throw away any of my chips since there were some strong players starting with more chips than me. I'm under the gun and see AQs! I raise 3 times the big blind and get five crazy callers :p
The flop is J95 with two diamonds, which doesn't seem so good for me. I'm sure somebody called with AJ or KJ or QT or something. Everybody checks - wow. I tell the dealer to give me a deuce and he does, but it's a diamond, so that's too bad. Everybody checks again, so I start to think I could be good, but probably not. I call for another 2, and he rips it right off the top. Everybody is checking around because they are afraid of my psychic abilities, and then we hear a knocking on the door.
Somebody jokingly said only the cops knock like that. Well, they were right. A grip of policeman come in with their guns drawn.
(more)
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Hats Off, to the SMPD for getting rid of all the other crime in San Mateo so that they can focus on the scourge of Adults playing poker.... and, Thank G-d they surely saved that child from a life of abuse, neglect, and crime....
Poker Ping
Libertarian ping! To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here
The so called police should be sued and fired immediately then put in jail for kidnapping.
While we were waiting to be interviewed, one of the officers told us how stupid we were for playing at a place like that with open invitations on the internet, as thugs would be happy to come by with "big guns" and relieve us of our money.
Dear G-d, this crap just writes itself! Truer words never spoken and all that ...
Looks like the thugs came by and took your money for their donuts and whiskey.
Land of the Free my ass.
“The gestapo encourages citizens to report instances of heavy foot traffic, frequent visitors and illegal parking in residential areas by calling its anonymous tip line...”
There, now that line reads just right.
If gambling is going to happen, gubmint is going to make money from it. Gubmint will brook no competition. Likewise alcoholic beverages. Smoke till your eyeballs fall out ... just pay that tax.
That’s a relief. The citizens of San Mateo can now sleep easily at night knowing that those dangerous criminals playing Texas hold em have been taken off the streets.
This is absolutely absurd. Bunch of douchebags. Did anybody see the Drew Carey video on Reason about how the “authoritahs” raided a VFW charity poker game?
Drew Carey Defends Poker (raid at the VFW Post 1837 in Dallas)
heh ... I posted it here ...
Let’s give em all the gas chamber. What do they think this is, a free country?
It was a free country. The funny thing is that in the liberal states like the DPRNJ where stupid crap like smoking in a bar is “illegal” the libs decided that the death penalty for murderers is not OK.
Libs have more sympathy for rapists and murderers than they do for poker players or smokers. Go figure. Another sign that the apocalypse is upon us.
I’m glad the swat boys were able to practice their skillz on a bunch of lowlifes. SWAT is so cool.
WEEEEeeeee!!!!
Many people here don’t seem to care, and in some cases applaud, when swat teams raid houses over misdemeanor amounts of pot. So why should they care over swat raiding a house over a misdemeanor poker game?
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