I’ve gone ahead and passed on the name and number of Brady Wyatt, in Dallas, mostly because my fellow high school alum is the one accomplished poker attorney — president-elect of the Dallas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association, and undefeated in the Jackie’s cases he represented — who’s contact info I had handy. (Brady also played a little nickle-dime-quarter mixed games with me back in the late ’80s/early ’90s.)

I know there are others though, some with even much more experience handling poker cases in Dallas and elsewhere around the country. I figure we might as well start compiling a list … so if you have any poker attorneys to recommend, or if you are one actively taking on poker cases, please let us know here.

UPDATE: The PPA has a litigation support network for its members.

Lee Rousso has handled some of the bigger poker cases out there, most recently online issues in Washington state. We’ll add him to the list.

Interesting to note that the courts aren’t even claiming Delvalle pulled the trigger — and yet he still faces life in prison for being the leader of the robbery/homicide. Interesting to me because the poker robbers in Dallas likewise face a similar fate. Sure, laws are different, state-to-state … but not by that much. And without a doubt, though no arrests have been made in any Dallas poker robberies and there’s no certain connection between the latest in Arlington and others around the DFW area that were very similar … poker players in Dallas have a pretty good idea about the identities of at least a few people who have may or may not have donned ski masks and wielded weapons to rape a poker room. (And no, I’m not taking about the police SWAT teams who have done that recently, too — that’s a different story altogether.)

When the Ashton got robbed, I was a little dismissive of the finger-pointing (it was a bad time to be a black Dallas rounder). But now, four or five robberies later — +1 dropped cellphone, +recurring player presences, +1 dead — the reality in this sub-subculture is becoming clearer. Not to mention that police have had their own inside players in games since at least 2006 … we know this for a fact, and even who some of those guys are, but probably not all … but regardless, point being that whether it’s a year from now or not, it’s only a matter of time before we see the poker crooks and the law come to showdown.

SIGH/ADDENDUM: As much as i understand why police kinda had to start busting poker rooms, it’s sad that these robberies and related violence started only after the raids, upon games’ being driven deeper underground. These sorts of things just didn’t happen in the freewheelin’ days when poker rooms were virtually open-to-the-public.

That raided place was the Longhorn Room — similar neighborhood, I believe, but not certain, as South Arlington isn’t exactly small. I know it’s sometimes hard to differentiate between cops and robbers in these cases.

BTW, why does it always seem that robberies follow raids almost immediately? You’d think it would be the other way around.

Not trying to start anything, rumor or otherwise … I just happened to notice a few visitors coming to us via Google searches overnight for “dallas poker robbery”. Not to give my secrets away, but monitoring Google traffic isn’t too different from the way night-shift journos used to listen to police radios back in the newspaper day … and when I’ve noticed a quick surge in such searches before (or more commonly, “dallas poker room raided”) it usually meant something was up. But other than this “hunch” I’ve got nothing.

UPDATE: Yep … VFW hall that screams poker room was popped last night:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26065611

VIDEO: http://video.nbc5i.com/player/?id=283511

UPDATE: Oh, dude, I recognize exactly where this is! One of the best and biggest games kinda-sorta but not really in Dallas. Have played there a handful of times, and always enjoyed the action. Interestingly enough, both cops and robbers have been here before. This was the place where the guys who just might be the Dallas Poker Bandits got their start …

It was a totally botched robbery about two years ago … where one (Michalski-trained) lovely boisterous lady dealer crawled inside a garbage bag to hide during the commotion. (We didn’t teach that in Lodge amateur dealer class, of course, but I applaud her creative thinking in the face of bad guys with guns.) I forget why the police were there like six months ago, but they did a walk-through and play was hardly halted. Then sometime earlier this summer (or maybe spring?) some robbers did show up and again were thwarted!

Previous to that I had been hearing from someone who supposedly had an inside connection with a cop that people might want to steer clear of this game because the Dallas police were finally all over it and just waiting for the right moment bust in and take it down.

Hurst police said they found two dozen people inside the home, which had tables, dealers and even a banker, and was set up to look like Las Vegas.

You know, Pokerati used to defend the police for just doing their jobs, and reminding poker players of that. But c’mon … SWAT teams? That’s so 2006. When you want to shut down a game next time … here’s a hint … try just knocking on the door(s). I know I know … I’m just a blogger and don’t understand police operations — so maybe you can explain to me how, using knowledge gained from your undercover, a knock on the door combined with a marked squad car in the driveway wouldn’t stop any poker crimes from being committed.

In fact, I’ll even give you the answer to this question: “Uh, duh, Mr. Know-it-All, because then there would be no money to confiscate for us to put toward other poker raids/the police “petty cash” fund.”

And while we’re bitchin’ about the money … yo local news media … when “dozens” of players gather with a sum total of a few thousand dollars … since you’re not going to really follow the money to look into what police are really up to with it, at least do the math and realize that this is not “high stakes.” You should be journalistically ashamed of yourselves for being so careless/sensational with your word choice.

For the rest of you, check out the comments on the Channel 5 story. At the time of this posting, they’re running 11-1 in favor of poker and against the police:

marty McFly
Fort Worth, TX
they should just make gambling legal in texas

Micheal
Fort Worth, TX
To use the taxpayers dollars to raid a card room where honest hard working are enjoying themselves on a Friday night is unbelieveable. Are they aware that poker is not gambling but a skill. It is worlds apart from pulling a laver on a slot machine. What a joke.

Micheal
Fort Worth, TX
And why does Hurst have a swat team anyway? To patrol the Abuelo’s parking lot?

What a Crime
Bedford, TX
Cooper and Catalytic Converter theft on the rise. Even gas theft on the rise. These are the things Police need to focus on, since they can’t seem to catch anyone doing it.

rabbitt
Dallas, TX
Oh thanks Hurst police department I feel so much safer now. This is a joke. They were gambling with their own money in privacy.

jcg
Grand Prairie, TX
I keep seeing all these poker raids in the news, All you here is they seize thousands of dollars in cash. Lets get real, are they seizing $2,000, or $80,000. The real question I have is How much does it cost to exucute one of these raids. I mean swat team, police, undercover narcotics unit. Maybe you can look into that.

joi
Irving, TX
I would hope this type of energy rush could be reserved for, oh I don’t know, violent criminals and predators.

The Id
Plano, TX
and they were hurting who?

Randy
Fort Worth, TX
Let me see if I’v got this right.( high stakes Las Vegas style poker game busted ) Sorry. my side hurts from laughing…… Swat team, Narcotics unit, under cover…
swat team had nothing to do.
Narcotics unit can’t seem to do what they are paid for.( catch dope dealers )
And the under cover guy, Yes Sr. I think I know who you are.
It’s a damn shame the working stiff guy can’t enjoy himself as to playing a little nickel and dime poker without being F with like that. I play alot of poker in Dallas and Ft. Worth. And yes, with police and fire fighters from every area………Guess I need to go to jail. Or at least get a ticket. Then again, maybe I should just start to play bingo.

The Id
Plano, TX
Did they also have the NSA zoom in the “Las Vegas style” house with their surveillance satellites to get a clear entry point and have snipers ready to fire if anyone tried to escape?

what a waste of tax-payers money

big bad John
North Richland Hills, TX
Micheal wrote:

To use the taxpayers dollars to raid a card room where honest hard working are enjoying themselves on a Friday night is unbelieveable. Are they aware that poker is not gambling but a skill. It is worlds apart from pulling a laver on a slot machine. What a joke.

My dear fellow stupid people all I ever hear nowdays is the police does this are that. The fact is they were doing there job and doing what they were told. Yes they have other certain units that go after the hard core crimnals. You trashy people get so mad when police officer,s are only doing there job. So shut up and stop your whinning and stop blaming the police department for doing there jobs you self rude moron.

Stacy
Bedford, TX
Ive worked and played @ many local rooms, no harm is done. People that think this is wrong are the ones who want taxes or their cut some way out of the earnings. Most of these players and employees are just killing time and having fun!!!! Life is so stressful, gas prices are getting higher everyday, most of us work 40 hours plus a week. Just leave us alone no harm is being done. Cant people just mind their own business now days, they seem to when they see a real crime!!!!!!!!!!

Channel 4 said it was a gambling club.
Channel 5 said it was a poker club.

Hmm, makes me wonder if ItsOverJonny may have been right when he suggested that a little extra poker ink tweaks the coppers into action. Not saying that Pokerati or a forthcoming poker documentary is to blame (the doc, after all, wouldn’t be coming out for a long while, and Pokerati generally prefers to pass on responsibility) … but there was apparently a big to-do in Dallas (again) over turning Reunion Arena into a casino … and boom, a few days later, perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not, somebody in some police force decided they didn’t want to look like they were turning a blind eye to “gambling.”

BTW, The Dallas Morning News poll results to the question:

Would you support a casino in downtown Dallas?

So far …

85 percent yes
15 percent no

I’ve talked with a lot of you before about doing something similar with local news crews — but perhaps not shockingly, ever since the first newscaster to sneak a hidden camera into the Dallas underground ended up getting engaged to the (already married) Chief of Dallas police around the same time her station got a sweeps-week exclusive showing SWAT teams busting up three games simultaneously, most of the “good guys” in the Dallas poker scene have been a little shy about opening their doors to the media … even with assurances that no one would give up any identifying info.

(Ahh, remember the good-ole-days when Stagecoach used to openly run its ballin’ website and pay little-ole poker websites for ads the Observer couldn’t run?)

Anyhow, so this outfit, 4th Row Films, is offering the same guarantees that they will protect identities and locations. Personally I think it would be a shame for this part of poker not to be seen. But I respect the fact people who run these games generally do so to support their gambling addictions families … so I’m not giving out any phone numbers or email addresses without any special OKs. I have, however, suggested they simply drive around to area strip malls looking for the telltale white, wireless doorbells — but that doesn’t seem to be giving them confidence as they fly their people and equipment to town. So if you happen to run a game in Dallas and would like your room to live on long after you die/get arrested and have to plea bargain down your misdemeanor … send me an email and I’ll be happy to put you in touch with the right people.

The 15/30 Omaha game had just broken a little after 10 pm central and a full 2/5 NLH table was going strong when players heard Smash! Crash! “What the fuck?!?” one player screamed.

“I know what that is,” another player answered as he ran toward the back room and others followed. It sounded like a police raid — we all remember how the cops busted through the walls at Jackie’s on semi-live TV — only this time it was robbers. Two armed black males wearing ski masks and hoodies came busting through glass windows and sheet rock to enter through the smoking room. Players looked for an escape in the seconds that followed, but there was no back door. This game – located in an office building near the Galleria – was relatively new … had been open just a few months … and seemed plenty secure with a two-door entry system monitored by cameras.

“Where’s the fucking money at?” the lead thug shouted as he emerged from the smoking room into the main area and made his way to the gace.

“There are a couple 50s beneath the drawer,” on of the room operators said.

Four or five players had crammed into a supply closet in the back room and locked the door behind them. Huddling together in the dark, they scrambled to find places to hide their wallets. One player had wedged his in some plastic wrap behind a stack of plates just a few seconds before the robbers realized there were people in there and ordered them out. They were told to lay on the ground with their faces to the floor – all complied – at which point the other robber frisked them one-by-one for their valuables while his accomplice made a quick check of the closet but apparently found none of the stashed goods.

The whole robbery lasted just a few minutes … as of last night, no decision had been made about whether or not to call the police, which you can suspect whoever is behind this latest string of poker robberies is partially banking on.

In addition to what I was calling “Henser’s Game” (have since learned it might be “Gennser’s Game”), DC’s Poker House also got raided last week — Friday, I believe, about the same time as the robbery at the Ashton.

From a Pokerati citizen journalist on the ground:

Another game that got raided was DC’s POKER HOUSE in dallas off of shiloh & northwest highway. The cops single handedly busted that game because of money laundering. DC had about 40 slot machines in the building that caused his place to be shut down. I beleive what made DC’s place get so hot was when he pulled out a 9mm on one of the players who were getting a little out of hand.

Yikes, mix 8-Liners and 9-millimeters together and you kinda gotta expect some problems, no?

Also, maybe this is where the reports of a triple poker robicide came from … within a few days last week you had two busts and one robbery nearly simultaneously … and as we know in poker, it’s often difficult to distinguish between the two, because the action and results are usually pretty much the same.

UPDATE: Hmm, this is the second time that a robbery and police bust went down at two separate poker rooms nearly simultaneously. Strange coincidence? It’s possible that both sides make similar assessments when it comes to game selection — picking nights when they expect the most money to be in play.

Not sure about the other two. The last time guys with guns stormed in to three places simultaneously and took all the money was in November 2006, when the DPD busted out the big guns and battering rams. More TK, of course.

UPDATE: The one semi-confirmed robbery took place in an Uptown high rise. Reportedly, “the phone rang indicating that someone had entered the access code in the lobby. They authorized access without picking up the phone. Whoever opened the door did not check and the perps stuck a 9mm in the door. 2 black males. They told everyone to empty their pockets but did not even take all of the money on the floor.” One player who was there also happened to be at another Dallas poker robbery a while back and says it was the same two guys.

We continue to hear that two other rooms were robbed, but whenever there was a poker raid, we would always hear about two others with it, and only once did that check out.

Police shut down a suburban Dallas game on Wednesday — I only knew it as [name temporarily withheld]‘s Game — located in Mesquite at Motley and I-30. It wasn’t vice or SWAT, reportedly, but detectives … confiscated the money in the game, and issued players Class C misdemeanor tickets outside. The game’s purveyor was “caught on the street” and police supposedly confiscated his car, along with all the cash he was carrying.

I never played in this game before, but I did hear about it and find out about playing. If I recall properly, they were running a 1-2-5 … medium action and pleasant crowd. Can’t remember if it was in a house or office park. That’s all we know for now. If you’ve got any reliable info please fill us in. Interesting to see War on Drugs-style forfeiture laws being applied in poker cases where we pretty much know the results of prosecutions even before they don’t go to trial.

CORRECTION/DETAILS (3/16): A guy named “Henser” was arrested. The game took place in a residential house. Detectives were in the game (?), but they ticketed players outside the house. Not for gambling, but for parking too close to the curb and things like that. And Henser was apparently pulled over (driving away from the scene?) when cops caught up with him.

Go insufficient evidence!

via Reason.tv

I just thought you might want to know that all of the Gambling Promotion charges that were pending against 11 alleged dealers, and or operators have been deleted,or shall I say in the words of that wonderful attorney of mine “Dallas County has decided to throw in the towel”. Chalk up another one for the Poker Players and give my attorney a raise? NOT!!! he was expensive enough to begin with but well worth it.

Cool, awesome … good for you. I mean except for the legal fees part. But considering how much money Dallas attorneys tend to donk into a game, it’s probably a wash, right?

(Not sure “deleted” is an actual legal term, by the way. But I suspect it is still good for the defendants.)

More on the VFW and other poker busts in Dallas here.

These came, interestingly enough, just a couple weeks after the Dallas DA publicly declared his support for HB 3186, which set out to clarify the legality of raked poker games and set up standards to regulate such businesses.

More on Dallas’ poker-friendly courthouse here.

Perspective forthcoming …

UPDATE: All cases against players dismissed. Charges against dealers and room operators put on deferred adjudication … meaning if they can stay clear of running a poker room for 90 days, all problems will go away.

Fyi. Dallas poker. Approx. 22 from the audie murphy vfw bust all hired the same atty for fifty a piece. This wk allcases were dismissed for misc reasons.

Related

Another Big Dallas Poker Bust – 4/15/07
RE: Another Big Poker Bust (2) – 4/15/07