Reason TV: paramilitary raid on veterans' poker game
Link
"Poker is about as American as baseball and apple pie," Carey says in the Reason.tv video. "It was born here in America. Mark Twain loved it. He's a great American. Until recently, Supreme Court justices had a monthly game. They're great Americans. You'd think playing poker in a VFW hall would be about as American as anything you could do."
"This story highlights the hypocrisy that surrounds gambling in this country," said Nick Gillespie, editor of Reason.tv. "States will gladly take your hard-earned money if you want to play the government's lottery. But if you sit down with some veterans to play Texas hold 'em you may end up with cops, in full riot gear, busting down your door. No one gets hurt when consenting adults sit down for a game of cards. And there's no reason for the government to get involved."
The busted poker players have a court date on December 5, 2007.
the latest
latest episodes
Gambling sucks. It's an unhealthful waste of time and money.
But that dosn't necessarily mean it should be illegal, any more than Rush Limbaugh's radio show, which shares these qualities.
The lottery, as others have said, is both "gambling for the math-challenged" and "an unnofficial tax on the poor." It also despicably plays on people's desperation and hopes for a better future, while taking away what little money they do have.
Per the fascists who staged this raid: no surprise that it happened in Texas. Sorry Texas, I know there are a lot of decent, free-thinking Texans, but your police, judiciary, and politicians suck ass.
I would just love for someone to lay out a cohesive, logical argument describing how the State has an interest in stopping these poker games.
I would just love for someone to lay out a cohesive, logical argument describing how the State has an interest in stopping these poker games.
States have these things called "legislatures," comprised of people elected by the citizens. These "legislatures" have the authority to regulate the citizens' actions, in the form of "legislation," so long as this regulation does not infringe upon a right enumerated (or unenumerated, as the case may be) in the state or federal Constitution.
@#2: I think it's an outdated law, like the laws against sodomy and buying alcohol on Sunday morning. Leftovers from our Puritan past.
Well, clearly these gamblers were not going to declare their winnings on their income tax forms. How dare they withhold this important revenue from our government in these trying times. Besides, they were having fun. I'm sure there's a law against that somewhere.
@#3: maybe we need a law, strictly constitutional mind you, against the "over-use of parantheses" while stating the "crushingly obvious," thus mocking others in a "I'm so-superior-to-you" voice.
Yes, I meant "quotation marks," not "parantheses." Sue me.
"First they came for the VFW poker players....."
@NE2D:
Power /= Interest
This was an abuse of power. Did they send a cease and desist notice? Did they send out a press release notifying the community that there would be a crackdown on illegal gaming? How much extra cash does the Dallas PD have lying around that they can put together a swat team for a VFW takedown?
Somebody will get promoted over this, mark my words!
In Texas, private poker gambling is legal, so long as the place running the game doesn't profit from it, such as by taking a door charge or a cut of the profits. The law specifically does not not apply to gambling "in a private place, where no person received any economic benefit other than personal winnings."
So, the raid implies that the veteran's hall was charging a vig on the poker game, which made it an illegal casino operation under Texas law. If not, then this was an illegal raid and the veterans have grounds for suit.
@#4 Nick D :
Just to pick on my own pedantic pet peeve, lay off the Puritans. They abstained from many things, but this notably included passing laws about how others should behave. Laws about alchohol, sodomy and gambling arrived much more recently.
Regardless of whether the VFW might have been profiting from the game, a paramilitary raid is simply overkill. If the purpose was to shut-down the game and the VFW, then I would think a couple of Texas Rangers armed with a warrant would easily suffice.
This wasn't a targeted episode - Dallas has been cracking down on (and raiding) all the poker clubs around town for a while now. While I agree with the sentiment of the VFW members, they really shouldn't have been surprised, considering the number of poker rooms that have been raided. Any game with a rake is going to be at risk.
Earlier this year, the governor also tried to sell the lottery to a third party. Talk about complicating the issue!
Oh, when will these illegals stop flaunting their rule breaking in face?
"Regardless of whether the VFW might have been profiting from the game, a paramilitary raid is simply overkill."
you never know when a veteran is going to rip out your throat with a hunting knife i guess.
Something that occurs to me, when reading something like this, is how terrorized cops must be in general if this sort of full-combat-gear, tase-or-shoot mentality is becoming this common. Why couldn't the local constabulary just send someone around to tell Bubba and Joe Bob that the house couldn't take a cut? A bunch of old vets, some in walkers, are going to automatically throw down and start shooting?
It took some searching, but I found additional coverage on this issue from The Dallas Morning News.
I am a little saddened that no one has started taking bets on the outcome of the case yet
@17 CRASH - Thanks for the link!
Chief Bernal said:
How much do you want to bet Chief Bernal doesn't fully understand the meaning of 'higher priority'? :-)
Lizardman, that depends... what are the odds?
@#11: "Leftovers from Our Baptist past" just doesn't have the same ring, though.
Yes keeping gambling illegal is stupid, but the thing is this: it is currently illegal to gamble (besides the lottery) in the state of Texas. In order for the game to be used as charity, the players can only put money in to enter the game, and that they can leave with PRIZES, not ACTUAL CASH. I feel terrible for the veterns that got busted, but it is THEIR responsibility to make sure that they are playing with the rules. It is unfortunate that they had a neighbor who hates gambling, it is unfortunate that the cops thought it was some seedy illegal gambling joint (other then a friendly neighborhood game), but you can't establish a poker game with players exchanging money and charge an entry fee, that turns the local from a charity game to a gambling den.
Also, making gambling illegal isn't as simple as a snap of the fingers. There are powerful lobbies out there AGAINST the legalization of gambling, and I'm not talking about the religious zealouts. Large gambling institutions located in Shreveport, LA and Oaklahoma depends on the traffic from Texas, not to mention Vegas, who has a large percentage of customers from the North Texas area (the rich ones). They would have no problem funding money for advertising or what not to over power the small percentage of the population that actually wants gambling to be legal.
And frankly, I don't care if gambling is legal or not, so there.
First of all, POKER IS NOT GAMBLING.
While chance does play a role within the grander scheme of the game, skill and only skill is the final deciding element.
The government's anti-gambling legislation is laughable - but lumping poker in with the rest is simply sickening. Sadly, an innocent poker player and math professor had to die because of their short-sighted idiocy:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/nyregion/04poker.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
#23, Fnord: The article suggests that "three or four men in ski masks and dark clothes [who] entered the room after 11 p.m. to rob the players." Are you suggesting they were agents of the New York state government?
Also, in New York as in Texas, playing poker for money is not illegal. It is only taking a rake for the house that is illegal, because that constitutes an unlicensed casino.
@#23 posted by fnord
Perhaps you should look up the definition of Gambling?
So what is a rake? Can VFW just charge up front for use of the facilities? Its legal in Virginia to play in homes too, but it does risk robbery.
#26, Mike Lotus: Generally a "rake" is the percentage of each pot taken by the house -- ie, every time someone wins $100, $5 of it goes into the house's pockets. This is the most common way by which both Internet and brick-and-mortar casinos make money from their poker tables.
The question of whether it's legal to have people pay up front to get in the door while the tables themselves are free is one of those legal gray areas that varies from state to state and judge to judge. The NYTimes article talks a little more about the law in that state, but generally speaking if you're making people pay for the privilege of gambling in your building, a prosecutor can make a pretty good case that you're running a casino.
Hasn't anyone ever seen the Odd Couple? Remember when Murray the Cop got busted for playing poker at Oscar's place? C'mon, people, do your homework!
Poker is more a game of skill than a game of luck, so it is not gambling (the existence of poker professionals goes some way to proving that). It is also, as Carey states in the video, as American as a game can get. The current war on poker is just as dumb and open to abuse as the war on drugs and the war on terror.
Swat teams raiding poker games... Goodbye, America! Nice knowing you!
#23, Fnord: The article suggests that "three or four men in ski masks and dark clothes [who] entered the room after 11 p.m. to rob the players." Are you suggesting they were agents of the New York state government?
Fnord is absolutely right that driving poker underground leaves players vulnerable to this kind of thing.
@ Graham
Please explain how the existence of professional poker players goes towards proving that poker is not gambling.Keeping in mind that there are professional slot players as well - and the issue (at least as you have raised it thus far) is not success or intelligence but simply existence.
While I will agree that poker involves a great deal of skill and that over time a skilled player will almost always win out over the random luck of the unskilled, there is always a chance the unskilled will win.
Regardless - see the definition of gambling:
intransitive verb
1 a: to play a game for money or property b: to bet on an uncertain outcome
2: to stake something on a contingency : take a chance
1a - covers any poker game played for anything other than fun
1b - covers every poker game with betting unless the players absolutely know each others cards
2 - see 1a & 1b
Poker IS gambling, get over it and move on. We all understand that good players (greatly)mitigate the risks of chance but those risks are still there
This is kind of silly. I would hope that the VFWs and other establishments would have known that what they were doing was not on the 'up and up'. Most of these establishments do, and regardless, its up to the owners/managers to be up to date on the code.
I still don't think it warranted a full swat intrusion. Especially since apparently there had to be an undercover police officer in order for the police department to determine there was illegal activity going on. It seems like a crack down to me. Texas is wanting to cut down on these activities, and showing a huge amount of force, and getting all the press, they will hope to scare the rest into submission.
Now apparently what they did was illegal. Whether or not the rake was for a charity or for the VFW, the fact was that it was still taken by the House. It also sounds like a lot of money was changing hands as the police had taken $6400 that the House had earned. If the news reports are correct in saying that the house was taking 10%, that means 64 grand had changed hands. That may be the reason it was targeted.
My Moose Lodge had a similar situation. They got around it by having the poker game, and just selling hamburgers for $10. It wasn't required to buy a burger, but strongly encouraged. They made pretty good money doing that, and still pleased the law
"Professional slot machine players"? I think that might be a dream you had, Lizardman. Even if there is such a thing, to compare them to someone like the late Chip Reese, or Doyle Brunson, or countless others is just nonsense.
Not a dream and I will agree right now that is insanely silly - however, they do exist and their tournaments have been featured on the same sports networks that often cover poker. Further, I did not compare them to any professional poker player and agree that such a comparison would probably be nonsense. I have a great deal of respect for the skill of high level poker players. But all of that is irrelevant and you have not addressed my question, so I will ask again:
How does the mere existence of professional poker players go to show that poker is not gambling?
There are some real issues to be found in this story but denying that poker is gambling is not only silly but draws away from those real issues.
Well, I do think it's self-explanatory but... being able to make a regular income, one that you can live on, means that poker is not gambling in the same sense as, say, roulette or betting on football results.
Slot machine tournaments...well, I'll take your word for it. But I still don't think the skills involved can be compared to the combination of strategy, psychological profiling and mathematical analysis involved in a poker tournament.
Anyway, while there are players who make a living on the tournament circuit, I am talking here mainly about cash game players, who keep books, budget their trips etc etc...There is no other form of 'gambling' that you can say this about, so I do believe it is a special case and should be treated as such.
It is not self explanatory - particularly in debate where self-explanatory is often code for I have no supporting evidence.
Further, they do not make a regular income in the sense that someone working a traditional job does - their incomes vary incredibly and they often go through periods of incredible losses - look at Mike Matusow (I am certain I spelled his last name wrong - "the mouth") as one example among many.
And, being gambling on different level or of a different sort than roulette or football is still gambling!
I have never said anything about the skill (I don't believe there is any) in playing slots - professionally or otherwise. I simply brought it up as something that existed in response to your original statement that the existence of professional poker players went towards poker not being gambling. Either quit trying to make baseless distractions from the point(s) or do a better job of it please. I have done nothing but agree with you on the level of skill involved with good poker play but that skill does not make poker any less an example gambling.
If you want it to be a special case of gambling fine - but it is still gambling by your words here. However, I will point out again there are are other forms of gambling with people making a living and doing the sorts of things you describe (keeping books, etc) mostly they are playing other card games and sports book people. Knowing both professional poker players and sports betters I can tell you that the serious sports people make less dramatic but more consistent wins and display insane skill in their collection and analysis of data
Supporting evidence? Well, let me trawl through Google...actually, no, I must get back to that 'life' thing I have. But Liz, you win, all right? I guess by saying that it is a form of gambling, I have admitted that it's a form of gambling. I still think that people who don't know any better lump it in with 'pure' gambling games and ordinary people suffer as a result (especially when you're talking about, say, $25 dollar tournaments, where the risk is negligible). But gambling it is.