In what really sounds like an inside job, three armed gunmen (two with masks) broke into a San Antonio home game a few days ago and robbed 15 low-stakes players (1/3 NLH) at gunpoint … but when they attempted to flee the scene, the SAPD was outside waiting to arrest them. Nice! I mean bad initially — the host’s wife, two young children and a baby were also in the house — but in the end all good with no shots fired and no need to call in the SWAT team.

(Note to non-poker media: do the math; $100-$200 per person isn’t “high stakes”.)

A firsthand account of the robbery/bust here. I’ll stay off my political soapbox for just a bit and say only wouldn’t it be nice if you could play poker in Texas at a place that can hire off-duty police officers for security? (Note to non-poker media: There’s a bill in the Legislature right now addressing this issue, fyi — HB 222 — that you may want to tie in to future stories of this ilk.)

From Vinnie the PastaTeke:

He kept repeating, “Don’t move; I’ll kill you, I don’t know you”. Maybe it’s just human nature, or maybe I watch too many movies but I couldn’t help but play over and over in my head the different things that could be done to overtake the guy with shotgun. Of course, I knew that this wasn’t smart because these guys were only there for the money and, besides, there were kids in the room. If someone tried to do something and it went wrong, one of the kids could have been hurt.

My first thought when I started reading (and before I knew the cops got’em) was wondering if these were indeed the Dallas Poker Bandits, perhaps just relocating their business because there was too much heat (and a homicide victim) in the DFW area. But the robbery sounds a little too amateur for Dallas’ now seasoned poker criminals. At the same time … there are some MO … so maybe? If you happen to be familiar with any of the Dallas poker robberies, take a look at the news videos here to see if you recognize any of the now un-masked men:

http://www.ksat.com/video/19198835/index.html
http://www.kens5.com/latestnews/stories/KENS20090416-GAMBLINGROBBERY.dd0e8f26.html

Kudos to the game host for dialing an operator and hiding his phone so the call could be forwarded to police — and nice work by the SAPD not just in ending this situation positively, but also for protecting other games … because as we have seen in Dallas, poker robbers tend not to quit after a single hit. I haven’t had a chance to get the police report yet and find out the arrested people’s names, but this story will continue to have life … not just because of the pending bill that would look to eliminate these sorts of potentially violent occurrences … but also because police are now investigating the legality of the game itself and may or may not press charges against the robbery victims as well.