I mean ... I hope nobody thought these were going to be here permanently.

Although, I guess some did: I can't imagine ever not cashing out fully from these rooms.

The question is why now and what this means. I don't think any of us have a good crystal ball, but the timing with the bill is certainly interesting. It's possible this is being done ahead of a clear path towards true legality. It's also possible the timing is coincidental, and we're back to the Lake Charles rooms or the underground rooms from here on out.

In any case, my bet is Houston is relatively dry for poker now through end of June at least.

I think you write that off as "Bad session" at this point... No way Prime reopens.

Unless there is more to the "money laundering" charge, right? I mean, since they hit multiple rooms, it is unlikely there is.

Also, the point--to me, not to the people arrested today--isn't whether or not they see jail time. It's what this means for the greater landscape of poker in Houston: were these clubs just a magical blip on the radar, or is this a pause before something else ...

Yep, "the Face got ****ed"

Here is the definition of Money Laundering as it presently appears in the Penal Code:
They will have to stretch to bring in the laws of another State because they don't get there under the felony element required to be the 'criminal activity' element. There is no felony preparatory offense in the gambling statute. And a prosecution that rests on the claim that the preparatory offense was the EOCA will fall as soon as the EOCA is pierced. There are reasons the DA has repeatedly failed in these sorts of cases.

It is certainly frustrating, especially for those who are charged and have lost their investments for the time being, but there won't be convictions coming out of this. This is a shiny bauble to make up for the other repeated failures of Art and Kim's respective offices...

People have safety deposit boxes with cash and chips in these rooms.

So the consensus is that Prime will never open, and will keep all the cash in boxes and refuse to exchange chips for cash later on?

Chips are now worthless but I would check with anyone you know that worked there to see if HPD confiscated the boxes and their contents. If yes you may be out of luck on the cash too. If no I would try to contact anyone that worked there to see if you have a shot. David Nguyen would be a good starting point. Assuming you know him if you had a box.

re bolded part. possible but hard to believe police would let people walk out with what would assumed to be evidence in a criminal prosecution.

regarding offer... I'd take it without thinking twice. Hard to imagine a turn of events where owners get their assets returned. Even if through some weird turn of events they do, Given what I heard about the integrity of some of these owners even harder to imagine owners would voluntarily return your money.



100%

I can say that in Prime's case - they are heavily invested in the community with many other businesses and are financially solvent

I would say it will be a cold day before any of these owners would not honor your money and trust in them.

that is all my opinion but i am rarely wrong in assessing character and integrity

I wouldn't hold out hope of getting money back any time soon. The media is reporting the feds were at Prime Social, as well as HPD. This likely means they've cut a deal between the two on proceeds from civil forfeiture. They're going to fight like crazy to keep money they've seized. It also potentially means these guys are going to be facing federal charges as well as state. It's going to take forever for all these cases to work their way through the system.

As an aside, the owner of Prime Social, Dean Maddox, was part of the huge multi-billion-dollar sports betting ring out of Dallas that the feds took down a decade or so ago. He eventually got off there with a minor tax offense plea. It'll be very interesting to see what happens here:
https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/...istory-7124611

Thread in News, Views, Gossip regarding this. That will get more eyes if people in here can post there also.

Michelle, your expertise in particular in that thread would be appreciated.

The local ABC affiliate got this quote from the Houston Police Chief for its 10PM broadcast...

"We're not going to tolerate it," HPD Chief Art Acevedo said. "We got two of the bigger ones today and this is just the beginning. We need to shut them down. If you want to have these kind of establishments, the legislature needs to authorize it, otherwise we're going to do our job and shut them down."
https://abc13.com/9-arrested-in-raid...rooms/5280339/

Ruh roh

The Houston Chronicle is reporting that in addition to criminal charges, Harris County Attorney Vince Ryan has filed civil nuisance suits against Prime and POPC seeking to permanently close them.
https://www.chron.com/news/houston-t...r-13811260.php

Reading through the original petitions for these civil lawsuits reveals that the 9 folks facing money laundering and organized crime charges are also facing gambling promotion charges. This gambling promotion charge is significant because it's what supports the organized crime charge which then supports the money laundering charge.

Remember the three-pronged affirmative defense everyone likes to talk about with these clubs? Private place, no economic benefit, and equal chances of winning? Well, the gambling promotion charge DOES NOT have any sort of affirmative defense like this.

The Stop Illegal Gambling Houston folks explain all of this better than I can in their legal guide. Check out the section on 47.03 Gambling Promotion: https://www.stopillegalgamblinghouston.org/legal-guide

Good luck getting all of that to stick in court. I hope the owners fight this and we get a definitive answer once and for all about the legality of these rooms.

See that's the thing. The stacking charge approach is designed to avoid court. Organized crime and money laundering are FELONIES. Money laundering with millions in proceeds is a first degree felony where the penalty is LIFE in prison!

No one in their right mind is going to risk that. They're all going to take plea deals for lesser charges...pay fines, probation, deferred adjudication, etc.

This is what the people running these clubs have never gotten and are now learning. They've been so hung up on the affirmative defense and haven't paid attention to how these cases actually go. The DA charges gambling promotion which has no affirmative defense. The DA stacks nasty felonies on top to get you to plead guilty to a lesser offense. The county files a civil nuisance suit to shut you down.

Game. Set. Match.

Most of the people reading this thread have zero compassion or empathy for the people out money who are living in poverty and grinding out a few thousand a month in winnings to survive at the rate of about $10-25 per hour because it doesnt apply to them personally. people with money NEVER have compassion or empathy for no one else. Unless of course u are a liberal who engages in disgusting acts God finds immoral, then u are treated as special.

because i care about those suffering i tend to flip out in these situations because i know how people feel who accidentally have a few hundred in chips in their pocket, fully expecting the club to be legal, been told by 1000s of prominent people in the poker community its legal, and fully expecting no biggie, ill cash these chips in tomorrow. then to suddenly find out theyre totally ****ed out of a months worth of rent money or food money or utility money. and no one else cares because theyres no sympathy for grinders who support themselves grinding poker. then people wonder why i get mad. its because God gives me empathy for those who are suffering.

id think a bigger felony and immoral thing to do would be to not cash those people out right away, and especially not screw them if they kept their entire lifes worth in a safety deposit box, because i mightve been tempted to had i visited houston. and all the web sites claiming its totally legal such as poker atlas should be the ones to compensate the players who trusted their word in legal matters such as this.

You left out all the dealers and other employees now out a job.

Lots of people, myself included, have dutifully said over and over that these places are not legal and are going to be shut down. That Stop Illegal Gambling Houston website and it's legal guide have been up for years. A prominent city councilman was all over the news saying they're illegal and that he was going to ensure they were shut down. Everyone knows the clubs in Dallas ran into problems with the authorities. Most people know a club outside San Antonio got raided and shut down.

The issue is that many people soooooo wanted it to be true that these clubs had found some magical loophole that they stopped using their brains. It's just like online poker's Black Friday all over again.

Now, do these people have a case against all the radio and billboard companies that did no research on legality either and just parroted the legality claims of the clubs? What about all the reporters for local news doing the same? The paid shills and writers flogging legality claims? I don't know, but it's worth talking with an attorney to find out. Maybe someone will take it on contingency.

The players themselves have a tough road to hoe. They're likely in for a long wait for their money, just like the online players endured.

You disappeared for about a year but you have come back with a vengeance. I can feel your giddyness as you masturbate to this news in your mothers basement.

I thought someone was finally coming in to mention how this stinks for the people that worked at these places that are now unemployed. However then saw it was TBC/sevencard2003 saying how terrible it is for the low limit grinders.

I hope these places paid week to week and the workers didn’t get screwed out of to much pay.

I guess your spoon-feeder on talking points failed to remind you that Art has to do something to focus attention elsewhere since he blew another deadline for getting the internal report on the shootings related to his dirty officers...you know, that botched Harding Street raid where we were supposed to have had a final report by the end of April.

Acevedo was a joke in Austin and he is even more out of his element in Houston.

1) The DAO has failed miserably in other money laundering cases involving game room operators. You and your handlers CONTINUE to ignore that reality along with the other reality that the DAO has to routinely return funds that were seized.

2) You and your handlers again fail to demonstrate any grasp of the Texas Penal Code. They would do well to talk to those of us who work in this arena.

3) The money laundering charge filed as a Complaint against seven of the nine (there are no indictments at present) lean on the Engaging in Organized Criminal Activity, specifically gambling (a misdemeanor). While the dollar amount is in the first-degree level, this does not mean a life sentence. If you truly believe the hype, you are an idiot. Disposition options on a first-degree felony could be anything from probation to a term in TDCJ of between five years to 99 or life. First offenders who the State actually manages to convict (few and far between, even for the cases related to drugs) tend not to be double-digit sentences unless you could probation terms of ten years as a double-digit sentence.

4) When the Court grants the Motion related to the fact that there was not gambling that had occurred, the EOCA falls and when the EOCA falls, so to does the money laundering charge.

5) At the moment, there have been no charges filed of Engaging in Organized Criminal Activity.

6) That players were not charged and were, in fact, permitted to keep their chips lends to the fact that there was no actual gambling that took place.

7) Lost in the shuffle (pun intended) is that both Prime and Post Oak had actual kitchens and bar service. Thus the 'private place' element becomes even easier to demonstrate vis-a-vis the country club analogy. While people had to pay to enter, they did not have to play poker and, in fact, had other options available to them once inside the premises.

8) You prove yet again that you are incapable of an original thought on this matter, quite probably because you apparently have precisely zero experience in the criminal defense arena, whether trial, appellate or other post-conviction specialization.

A SINGLE charge exists against seven of the nine at present. What happens after Grand Jury presentment remains to be seen. However, the HCDAO has a poor history at any manner of game-room prosecution when they over-reach into the felony arena. You have been schooled on this in the past but choose to ignore it, as do the spoon-feeders you rely upon for your talking points.

You ALSO ignore that there are ZERO charges filed here related to gambling. The prosecution is built upon a house of cards that is going to fail spectacularly. Funds WILL be returned and there will be nobody going to prison.

Prime was supposed to start a $580 buy in, $150k guarantee, 5 day tournament yesterday. I wonder how many got screwed by pre registering.

FYI, for those interested in tracking the as-yet unserved civil cases which were filed yesterday...

Cause Number 201930591 against Bayou Social Club, LLC (DBA Prime Social Club) will be in the 295th District Court (14th Floor of the Caroline complex)

Cause Number 201930535 against KHC, LLC (DBA Post Oak Poker Club) will be in the 164th District Court (12th Floor of the Caroline complex)

It is ironic that the claim is advanced in the initial pleadings that it was a 'public place,' yet the April 2019 undercover operation at Prime saw the officers who posed as customers admit to paying a membership fee, a door fee and a fee to play at a poker table inside of the club. It also concedes that food and beverage was available. The fee was charged "on each occasion."

The Petition makes clear that it was indeed a private place.

The most stunning number in the suit against Prime, however, was the fact that more than six million dollars is alleged to have been deposited across four different bank accounts between October 31, 2017 and January 31, 2019.

The undercover operation involving POPC began during November 2018. Complimentary food is described as being served with alcohol being BYOB in nature, although one officer alleges being able to purchase alcohol from an employee by paying her a "tip."

POPC bank accounts are alleged by a HCDAO Fraud Examiner to have seen deposits in excess of four million dollars between August 02, 2017 through September 27, 2018.

The arrest warrants associated with yesterday's 'raid' are indicated to have been signed on April 29, 2019.

holy chit.

how many tables did Prime have running on avg each night?

What was rake/fee structure?

Using four bank accounts is suspicious is it not.

I think 15% could be attributed as initial shareholder deposits. 4 bank accounts is very reasonable for an operation of that size.

One potential setup:
1 - Bar account - bar revenue/expenses
2 - Operating account - operational revenue/expenses
3 - Payroll account
4 - Savings account

Also, is it safe to assume that those figures don't include inter-company transfers?