I played a cash game in the room tonight and it appears that they are taking this issue seriously.

Something bad may have happened. Or not, but please be careful throwing around accusations without facts. Bob did an excellent write-up except several of his accusations were based on guesses and rumors, not facts.

I'd hate to see major changes caused by accusation and innuendo from visiting players when many of the everyday regulars are happy with the way things currently operate.

Things I know:

• Daniel Sierra is a very good floorman (I know nothing of his ability as a td). You can stop by anytime and speak with him. The same goes for the rest of the floor staff.

• Hialeah Park is the nicest and most well run room south of the Isle. Their staff is far above average for South Florida.

• Many of us play there 120+ hours per month and are quite content with how the room is run.

• All South Florida poker rooms have their idiosyncrasies and Hialeah is no different. Tonight a player was complaining that Spanish and English were being spoken during a hand because where he normally plays only Hebrew and English are spoken during the hand. At either room you can just say "Hey, English?" and everyone is sincerely apologetic and switches to English.

I hope Bob and PokerXanadu ferret out any untoward dealings, but please be careful to limit the collateral damage. It would be a shame if people who don't play at Hialeah insist on wrecking a room that the people who do play there enjoy.

Perhaps nothing bad actually happened?

Either way stop by, meet some of the regulars, and have some great coffee.

You might grow to appreciate the way the room is run.

Not Real- don't get me going! They never stop players from speaking Spanish- the waitresses don't even speak English if you ask about food they don't understand your English spoken question. Don't pretend that they simply stop speaking Spanish when someone says hey, English. The players I feel are very respectful but I know when I go to Hialeah Its going to be Spanish only spoken at the table. This is the dealers and floors responsibility to correct this and they usually IGNORE it (in my opinion)!

If they didn't want the rest of Florida to become aware of the money missing issues then they should NEVER have advertised a $200,000 event. Regulars alone cannot account for that much so they were obviously trying to get non-regulars to play.

If you think nothing shady is happening with the prize pool then why won't they let you see a prize structure sheet (have asked and always am denied), why don't they announce before the event starts what percentage of players get paid, why don't they show honestly how many people bought in all flights total, why did I and a friend witness players getting extra free add on chips and rebuy without paying (different occasions), there are so many why's???

I don't want to see a casino get shut down. But, how fair is that when players are having part of their winnings for playing two days straight being taken away? Something needs to change to stop the abuse. Maybe now the prize pool will be correct. Maybe they should stop offering end of rebuy add on to prevent missing funds. Maybe they should just get Honest with their players! Maybe NOT REAL works there because every player that I've spoken to that are or used to be regulars has something to say about misconduct at Hialeah.

Maybe. Or Maybe not.

"the waitresses don't even speak English if you ask about food they don't understand your English spoken question." How does this statement advance your argument about tournament corruption?

Everyone has the right to know what buy ins were made each flight, what re-buys were made per table per flight , and every player should know what percentage is being taken by the house before they enroll in a tournament not after they decide to take for high hands and BS. This place has been getting away with cheating their locals for years now , but since this tournament attracted experienced players with knowledge of tournaments operations, the staff got caught red handed stealing from the patrons. They should all get prosecuted for this . You as a Poker Employee of a Poker Room are granted a STATE LICENSE which signifies loyalty and honesty compliance with be practiced by you as expected. This POKER ROOM failed to provide this.
Not real - what does being a nice poker room and being a friendly poker room staff matter if behinds the lines you are stealing / cheating to fatten your pockets .

It does not matter. Just be sure you are correct about your accusations.

Hi Hialeah employee. This post is total diarrhea. Lol at your comment about the no Spanish at the table. Like seriously!!!! This room needs some massive change. You guys have some of the biggest scum bags in miami running this room from management to most of the floor guys. Most of the people posting in this thread do play in Hialeah. You think people are making fake accounts for fun? Nobody want to get banned from this room for obvious reasons.

I'm part of a 17 person poker chat. We always joke around about Hialeah's poker room and how they always skim from the pot. The following story happened to me, NOT something I heard from someone else.
I was playing one of their "special" MTTs, in other words, not the regularly daily scheduled ones. I busted and was offered a rebuy right at my table. This did seem odd but I wasn't gonna question it bc my table was soft. I handed them my money and a floor person handed me chips. INSTANTLY I asked for receipt bc I needed to claim losses against a previous cash. I waited for about 2 hours while I was still in the tourney. When I busted that bullet, I appraoched the floor who I had been asking and asking for my ticket. She gave me the run around and would just speak into her walkie talkie piece and nothing. Eventually, one of the other floors called me over to the front of the room, and had me wait while he made several phone calls. After 1hr of waiting, he was finally able to provide a ticket. Everything looked wrong bc it was basically empty except for my name and buy-in amount. Since all this took place AFTER the rebuy period ended, I was curious if now the "total buy-ins" would reflect my ticket on the tourney clock. Of course not. So my money most likely went into the pockets of all the ones involved in this scam. I have since never gone back to play tourneys. I still go to play cash bc goshdamn that's the juiciest room around ��

Glad you bring your experience up. What seems to have occurred here is that the female poker room employee was not prepared for your request of a tournament receipt, because she was definitely in on the scam. See the problem I see here fellow poker players, is the number of employees involved in this operation/scam without upper management putting an end to it. COULD IT BE THAT THEY ARE INVOLVED AS WELL, NO ONE REALLY KNOWS. I will tell you this, they are slowing losing poker players to this unfortunate circumstance and pretty sure once it reaches the State of Florida gaming board, it will be very hard to fix HIALEAH PARK POKER name

This is just great.

Have played a few tournaments at Hialeah, each time vowing not to return because something just doesn't feel right (my main gripe in past being that they have these "chip up" add-ons and rebuys in every tournament they run that are simply unaccounted for and that always make me feel like somehow something shady is going down). Nevertheless, I thought there was no way they would hit this 200k guarantee (I think their previous largest tourney is a 100k) so I went to play Saturday's day flight. I bought in maybe 1.5 hours into the tourney, walked over to the desk and was given my choice of 4 seats face up (lol) and asked if I had a preference. If I had more time, I probably should have explained to this guy (maybe the TD) the obvious collusion that opens up if you allow people to choose their own seat but I wanted to play asap so I took a seat card and sat down. Well, the tourney was finishing up break and someone was sitting in my seat in what seemed to be a very deep convo with the dealer. Dealer took chips out of well to hand me 15k starting stack, I give her $20 for the 5k add-on and she throws out a few more chips while barely looking. I count and it is 18k total. I say "isn't it supposed to be 20?" She hands me two more 500 chips and I say "this is only 19k." She chuckles and hands me one more 1k chip. Saw multiple people rebuy from the table without receipts given and without he screen of entrants changing. All of this to say that aside from the shadiness being reported, theres legit zero chance of them being able to account for all chips on the table when they are giving out chips and making change this haphazardly (and don't have the stacks pre-prepared), which just leads to mistakes aside from the shady stuff.

This a good time for the Division of Pari-Miutuel Wagering to hear player complaints. The Division is currently re-formulating the regulations for cardrooms. The changes include tournament requirements, including, making available in writing for each tournament the breakdown of each buy-in, rebuy and add-on (house fees, prize pool, etc.); the amount of chips received for each; a description of the tournament structure; and the estimated distribution of winnings.

You can also write the Division with changes and rules you would like to see implemented in the regulations.

You can download the "Draft Text" of the proposed new rules here:

http://www.myfloridalicense.com/dbpr...Cardrooms.html

I believe the proper person to contact about rule changes is:

Bryan Barber, Rules Coordinator for the Division, 1940 North Monroe Street, Tallahassee, Florida 32399, bryan.barber@myfloridalicense.com, (850)717-1761

Here is mine:

people getting fired, jail time, and legal action needs to happen if any of this is true

Great work OP

Good morning to all . Pokerxanadu thanks for all the information you have provided it helps out a lot of us wanting answers . I was playing poker last night at a local Poker room and the chatter about this topic was alarming to say the least. At my table alone , there was 4 guys who had something to say about the way things are run/operated at Hialeah Parks Poker Room. One specific gentleman remembers an instance where he was offered a tournament buy-in from a staff member for cheaper than the original buy-in amount. He says the tournament was an $80 buy-in tournament and he was offered the receipt for $50 ( by a staff member/ floor person). Since he was given this buy/in at a discounted amount , he purchased it , but remained in confusion throughout the tourney . Another player says he remembers and instance in a live cash game where a FLOOR SUPERVISOR was seen reaching into his pocket during his shift and loaning a patron money to play , in the middle of the poker room floor. I'm sure this practice is not something that is acceptable to any degree of honesty or integrity of a Room

Wow, that's insane. Almost played there the weekend before this while in Miami, glad I did not. There's a reason I stopped playing in underground games shortly after trying them, and this basically sounds very similar.

Now the truth of the matter here is , if all these experiences/ instances have occurred throughout Hialeah Park , why hasn't it reached upper management or if it has , maybe nothing's been done . Yesterday a player mentioned that he has heard that employees of the Poker Room at Hialeah Park are scared to express themselves for fear of losing their positions. That's means that they are put in a position to allow this to go on , or lose your job , making it even more evident that the managers at the place feel more secure with their actions. Look I won't be playing there anymore or plan on ever going back , but if the BRUNETTI family doesn't make an effort to evaluate what has been going on at their facility for the past years , they might lose a lot more players along the way

Michael, as someone who is so interested in the development of Florida poker, I'm surprised that when this much equity has been stolen, that you would take a popcorn-eating view on this. This wasn't great for jerry Wong who made the ft certainly and a myriad of others. It's great that they have been exposed (maybe that's what you meant) but the opening of Hialeah has really grown poker in the 305 with a lot of spillover into the 954 and I hope the 305 poker playing populace isn't discouraged or too fleeced by hialeahs cheating ways to continue playing. Hope that the poker room there survives this scandal albeit with new management.

Since Hialeah Park opened it has grown a certain reputation that is just now coming to light. I personally have had many poor experiences in both unethical behavior by player and staff alike. I have heard it called the Wild Wild West and I must note, I had no idea the Wild West involved so much Spanish speaking and collusion at the table. There are a select group of men that are clearly colluding in some of the higher stakes games. Furthermore, the order in which a list gets ignored at times is downright embarrassing and immoral when an action player walks in the room. I can vouch for anyone taking shots at management. They are the single worse ethically ran room I have ever seen and that is saying something.
I have heard stories in the past about the management being a bunch of friends who are up to "no good" outside of the poker room. It does not surprise me in the least that they would bring that mafioso mentality into their workplace. I'll give the floor staff credit sheere it is due. They dress particularly well.

I would like to point out that after playing in this tournament and cashing I expressed my concerns about the prize pool and how it was handled and Hialeah Park responded by blocking me on Facebook and having a lot of its dealers delete me... This place needs NEW MANAGEMENT!

The Hialeah poker room is managed by Bookies. Nelson Costa the poker room manager is a sports bookie. The group of cubans who are cheating in the higher stakes PLO games there are also bookies. Prior to Hialeah opening up there was a home game being run by a miami whale named Lebanese Mike. Nelson and the other floor guy Junior were regulars in this game. Some nights these two guys were snorting lines of cocaine off the rail. These guys are good friends with a lot of the scummy bookies in miami and they allow these regulars to do what ever they want in the room. This room needs change!! its a beautiful room with terrible people running it.

The good ole boy system...welcome to the south

I rarely play at Hialeah but I was in the area last week so I sat down at 2/5. I pulled out $600, the max at that table, to buy in and one of the players says, "It's uncapped." I look at the dealer and say, "really?" and he says yes. Seems fishy so I say to the table, "Is it really uncapped or you guys ****ing with me?" Someone else says yes and no one says anything to the contrary so I buy in for 1k. Stacks at the table are deep. A couple downs later I lose a big pot and pull out money to top off, dealer says, "game is capped at $600." I tell him it's an uncapped game, he calls the floor, floor says it's capped, I tell floor what happened earlier - that everyone said it was uncapped including the dealer - and he did not give a ****. Buy in capped at $600, end of discussion, no interest in what happened earlier.

Welcome to all the new posters! No Real, if you have any (professional) ties to the room it would be appreciated if you stated that. You leaving that point in the middle makes the room look extra shady, which is something you obviously don't want.

**** is crazy.

I am in no way employed or compensated by Hialeah Park, the casino, the poker room or anyone who works or plays there. My connection to the poker room is limited to playing there many hours per month.

I never said the accusations are untrue, I simply stated it would be nice if facts were used to back up allegations. A lot of half-truths, rumors, and innuendo are being thrown around in this thread.

Most of the regular players actually like the room, and current management, the way it is.