I think the conspiracy theorists are a bit off on this one. If you've never driven up to a drive thru in the wee hours and got ignored then consider it a good amount of run good on your part. These aren't exactly top notch employees most of the time, they could be in the bathroom or even sleeping, who knows, but it does happen that way.

I'll throw another twist in the "what if" category. What if the stake was $15,000 and he was up and had $20,000 on him? How would you expect to split the loss then?

It seems to me that the last location you took the money from at Mohican is exactly the type of place a team of thieves, including an employee, would scout for victims. Sounds like its the big money part of the casino.

yea but no one knew they were going to stop at a closed donut shop at 4 in the morning and go outside their car and confront a person in the parking lot.

Or did they?

Thanks for the kind words. My situation was different, as are all of them. I fought off my robbers because it seemed like the best way to not die. Not because I'm some badass. In your case as described, fighting would probably have increased your risk of death or serious injury, so better to give them the money/car/whatever.

No, you don't. If the choices appear to be between helping somebody who put themselves at risk by taking drugs or whatever, and putting yourself at risk, it is perfectly acceptable to pick yourself. Even if he might be an innocent victim, you have no requirement to risk yourself to help him. If you choose to do so, that's fine. I'm not saying you're wrong. Just understand that you are taking a risk, and that you are willing to do so.

Of course, you can never know. And once things go sideways, very few of us make the smartest choices in the stress of the moment, with so little time to think. My suggested course of action was a middle ground between driving away as expeditiously as possible, and getting out of the car to help. And I had time to think it through.

Please do not take anything I say as a condemnation of your actions. You did nothing wrong. And even if you took a risk, and didn't realize in the moment you were doing so, that doesn't mean you were wrong. It just means something didn't occur to you, and so you didn't take it into account.

I'm glad you and your friend weren't hurt, and that is the most important thing. But, the lesson for the future is, there are evil people in the world, who will hurt and kill you for very little reason. Do your best to protect yourself, but balance that with your good intentions to help those who need your help. We will all get it wrong sometimes. Like poker, we try to make the best decisions we can, and live with the results. And hopefully learn along the way, so that we make the best decision as often as possible.

Cheers, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

as long as he was standing up and holding his arms up he was fine. If he was high and drugged out, there's nothing you could have done for him. That would also be dangerous as he could just attack you for trying to help.

Next time drive away and call 911 to report a suspicious party. Your lucky he didn't kidnap you and make you drive the car. That wouldn't have ended well for you. Your lucky this only ended up costing you some cash. You live and you learn.

This happend at the Grand Casino in Detroit also. Though one of the guys did not comply and the beating they put on him left him in a coma for two weeks. Players get robbed infrequently but it happens. Casino's are vile underworld scam houses so...expect criminals to possibly follow you home if you cash out big.

Hallucinating on meth makes you want to stop and help with 12k in cash on you?

Also it doesn’t matter how much money you have on you, just how much they think you might have. 1k is plenty to get yourself robbed by a lot of people, 12k is Christmas. You vastly underestimate the changes you were targeted at the casino. People have cell phones, they don’t have to ‘follow’ you, they can just text someone that you’re leaving and to pick you up on the way out. Casino employees have your address. Not like no one in Cali has ever left a casino and found someone waiting for them at home

dont give casinos your address. and tell others that arent close to you an incorrect place where you live. why open yourself up.

The room I play in requires your drivers license to get a players card. So unless the address on your card is wrong, they have your address.

No. Never get out of your car at night in a sketchy area. ESPECIALLY if the guy is high on meth, hallucinating etc. ??? Why on earth would the fact hes on meth INCREASE your chances of "helping" them while carrying LARGE amounts of cash???

AND its sketchy spanish thug with a rag on his head?!?!?! WTF

Everything about what you did is extremely bad decision making at the absolute highest level. Honestly your friend should pay you nothing. You basically got yourself robbed, its 100% your fault.

Im not trying to be a dick, but you literally hit every pothole on the way to getting robbed.

If that happens to me, im scared AF and i peel out of that parking lot. Getting out of the car is the LAST thing on my mind, especially with that much cash on me or my friend. I definitely have my cellphone near out of my pocket in case i need to call 911. (FOR MYSELF NOT THE THUG)

Opening the window is also SOOOOO BAD. Whoever mentioned that is a complete fool.

EVERYONE has a cell phone. NO ONE needs help from a stranger at 3am in a dunkin parking lot dressed as a gang member. NO ONE. EVER.

EVERYONE who needs help calls 911.

You 100% can let someone walk into traffic high on meth and get smacked by a car. Anyone who tells you otherwise, again, is a absolute and complete fool.

"You" didnt cause him to smoke meth and walk into a busy street. This sort of logic boggles my mind when it comes to your story.

Sorry but your story is just infuriating, you should owe the ENTIRE amount.

I travel a good amount for business and also play the larger games for the most part in the room. Playing the larger games in a smaller casino as a winning player, specifically dog tracks certainly makes you a prime target to get robbed. As someone mentioned earlier, just because someone is playing the game doesn't mean they can't text or even the dealer, cocktail, or even a rail-bird.

Criminals know that you are traveling as a non-regular, most likely don't have a box and are most likely staying in a hotel off property if you are playing in the Florida dog tracks with no hotel. I was followed home one time from Sun Cruise Casino for over an hour back to Orlando in the early 2000s. Thankfully, I noticed the car following me from the boat because I just won around 10/11K in the nightly tournament and was more on watch than normal with around 15K on me. I was able to call ahead to my buddy and when the criminal tried to block my car and walk up on me he was surprised with an AR-15 pointed at his head from two directions. We called the cops and sure enough he was armed and had a long record of doing small time crimes. We let him walk almost into my garage just to confirm there was no misunderstanding as to why he was following me home from the casino boat. I was in my early 20s when this incident occurred and would have called LEO from the start now to check on the car and never let the guy know my home location.

Tips to avoiding getting robbed IMO based on traveling for over a decade playing decent size games all around the country.

1. Don't drink at the table or appear to be too intoxicated!
2. Make up a story about where you are staying, if the property has a hotel complain about the price of the room at the table, obviously not saying that most players are sitting there to rob you outside of the game but you just never know anyone's financial situation. You also don't know who is sitting around the game or even if the dealer is scouting stacks or the big out of town winner.
3. Don't wear flashy clothes or jewelry, i have fairly nice 4 figure watch and will typically take it off and place it in my pocket walking out of the casino. Criminals will often target those signs as an indicator that you have some cash in your pocket.
4. NEVER pull out your entire bankroll in front of anyone, i will often see guys cashing out for 2/3K and adding to a roll of 10/15K right at the window around closing time in some dog tracks, just insane imo.
5. NEVER stop for anyone late at night leaving a casino, call the cops if someone is in trouble or needs help. Don't make any late night food stops until your cash is back in a nice hotel safe.
6. Don't ride with your cash up front, keep around 300/400 in your wallet but hide the main roll in the truck of the car in case you do get rolled. You need to have something to give the criminals in order to keep the situation under control. You can accomplish this really quickly when the valet pulls up your car, just tell them you need something from the trunk and be discrete.
7. If you have an established bank and are done playing for a few days or the trip...take the bulk of your roll to the bank and cut a check to yourself.
8. Act a little paranoid, if you don't feel right arriving at a hotel drive around a few times or call the front desk and ask for nighttime security to escort you in. I would much rather be too cautious and avoid getting robbed. I think the avg. carrying cash for someone playing 5/10 is around 7-10K, think about how much cash that is to some people working minimum wage jobs.
9. ALWAYS cash out in the side room if possible, I play fairly big at best bet and always request to cash out in the side room to keep the local 1/2 players from seeing 5-10K going in my pockets.
10. VALET, don't be cheap if you are going to play bigger games than 1/2 and pay the money to valet your car and avoid late night parking lot walks. If you don't have that option request a walk out from a police officer, always do this in Daytona.

Most Important....be prepared to be robbed. If you have a gun in your face don't freeze, look down, comply, and tell them to take the money, phone, watch, and anything else of value. Stuff can always be replaced or rebuilt. Just tell them please take anything you want i have little kids.

If i am in my home game or driving around, I always carry my weapon but that wouldn't be my first thought/choice alone to get into a shoot out leaving a poker game.

Criminals rely on people that let their guard down, if you make yourself a smart target most criminals will move on to the drunk guy with 100s spilling from his pockets. If you go to a room one time and don't feel safe skip it. Personally, I did not feel safe at Fort Pierce Dog Track one night driving out to check it out because it was the close room to the hotel, I just spent the extra hour to drive South to a larger room with better security. Don't be afraid to do a little research, As someone who travels around 100 days of the year domestically and internationally, I always check out the area in advance to understand where I am going for the week.

Never really comment on this site anymore but this seemed like something important to discuss and talk about for sure.

-ClickAerospace

Thank you for posting this. Good advice, even for us low rollers who hope to bink a score one day (for me it would have to be in the pits, but this still applies).

And never forget that what you consider a small amount of money can be a lot to someone else

so the scenario is that 3 armed, do-rag-wearing, spanish guys were just hanging out at 4am at a closed establishment with no reason to expect traffic at that hour, in the middle of the new england winter? hmmm..

No problem, carrying the money around is one of the aspects of live poker I really don't like to be honest. I rarely walk around with cash in my wallet over $100.00 during an average day but to play in some games i have to bring 20K in cash with me unless i am able to wire the cash which is always option number 1 for a longer trip.

A great example is best bet...

All the higher limit games are upstairs or in the private rooms. Everyone knows that the people playing in those games most likely have a good amount of money on them. The parking lot is well protected by the JSO officers at the front and in their cars. I always take a nice loop around the express way to make sure no one has followed me from the game.

Best Best is typically 1/2 big games with 10-15 smaller games running on the floor plus the degenerate table games.

This. I can't for the life of me figure out how people can believe this story. What a D- troll job. Ive been playing at Foxwoods for the past 15 years. The casino and area is probably the safest of any gambling establishment in the entire country. Nobody is getting stuck up in 2017 in the middle of the conneicuit woods. There may never have been a single robbery there since it opened 20 plus years ago. Oh And of course OP gives the pathetic durag Hispanic description to add whatever shred of credibility to his "mugging" he can. Are you people that ******ed?

Plot twist: OP set up 3 armed, do-rag-wearing, spanish guys were just hanging out at 4am at a closed establishment with no reason to expect traffic at that hour, in the middle of the new england winter to rob himself and try to get the horse to pay.

It's like insurance scam.

In my case they would be waiting at the post office because my DL has my PO box on it.

and how would he expect to get the 12,000 back from them.
that hypothesis might work for the stakee though. as its a free roll for him.

but this seems legit and just a dumb move by the op that he im sure realizes.

and what were the armed spanish dudes doing hanging out at 4am at a closed establishment in single digit temps? according to OP, their intent was a ruse to steal a car. if you and your crew wanted to steal a car, would that be the best plan you would come up with? "hey, we need a car, bro.. but how??".. "oh i know this closed establishment. it should be desolate for hours. no traffic expected. let's go hang out there in 10 degree temps and hope someone really, really, really stupid drives in"... "perfect. that's why you're the leader of the gang, bro!"

It would be interesting to see if there is a relationship between those who think there is a >0% rounded chance of this story being real and those who have never been to Foxwoods or bothered to look at a map of that Dunks and its surrounding area.

The carjackers would have to be hanging out at an ostensibly closed Dunks hoping that a mark would mistake it as open.

Think it was established that the DD was open

I know. I posted the hours.

It was then that the DD employees moved to the bathroom.

I’m from Connecticut and have played a ton at Foxwoods and made that drive a few times before. That area is one of the whitest areas in the world. I can’t remember if that DD is 24 hours but I think it is.