LAS VEGAS–Just getting word that a game got raided recently (like days ago, maybe?) in Highland Village. From the sounds of it, it was a home game … (or maybe a \”home game\”?) … with a little money taken out of the pot to pay for food and drinks. Could this be the case that brings the concept of rake to a real legal test?
Here\’s what I know, thanks to an email from Sang in Dallas:
Dan I know you\’re busy, but the local news had a story of how Highland Village cops busted a guy\’s house to bust up a poker game. I think there was a rake, but he claims it went for food and drinks. The cops confiscated about 8 grand in cash and everyone went to jail. Highland Village is right north of Lewisville and a fairly affluent suburb. I think the channel was channel 11, pretty sure it wasn\’t channel 8.
Thanks, Sang, for the on-the-couch reporting. Nothing\’s up on Channel 11\’s site yet (but that\’s normal, I think). Perhaps some of the people who were there — cops, you are welcome to comment, too! — will fill us in on what all went down. In the meantime, here\’s the story they ran on the Aces raid.
(Everybody loves to see poker on TV!)
UPDATE: Here\’s the link to the Channel 8 story. Watch the story and you\’ll notice a chip tray suggesting there was indeed a rake of some sort … and Jimmy Ray Everett admits as much. But at the same time, this was hardly a major \”poker room.\” This could be a very relevant case — cops busting into a private home where people are engaged in social gambling (which is legal) and freely choosing to take some money out of the pot to pay for snacks (which may or may not be illegal, but right now probably is) — if someone chooses to make it so.
At the last charity tourney I played, I sat next to a Richardson cop who explained to me why taking money out of a pot to buy pizza for a home game is NOT illegal. I believed him until this story emerged.
