With limited factcheck, we do have a little more poker-minded info to go on beyond the hedline and the TV news report:
14 arrested — “at least,” authorities say — presumably to be charged with traffic-ticket offenses. Though you never know with Harris County … they’d be up for Class A capital punishment there, I suspect, if that dang constitution didn’t get in the dern way.
Not clear on what the FBI’s involvement was here. The Feds generally haven’t gotten involved in these sorts of local raids throughout Texas. And in general this raid seems a bit peculiar as there supposedly hasn’t been any sort of crackdown for a few years, a Houston player tells us.
Some basic info about what was known as the I-45 South game:
It’s a very large game that’s been running for many years. They have $2,000 freerolls every night. Games running from 1/3 NL up to 5/10 on a regular basis.
Also a bit odd/lame … commentors in this news report seem intent on naming names and tattling on other games that may or may not be involved in the Houston poker underground but have yet to be raided. Cool raw video footage though, if you want a closer glimpse of handcuffed players.
The funeral for Barron Glenn Boutte is today in Houston. He’s the 24-year-old shot and killed while attempting to rob a Houston underground poker room earlier this month. His shooter is not being publicly identified, though police have determined Boutte’s death a matter of self-defense. Club 203, where the fatal shootout occurred, has been indefinitely shut down.
A few more details about the thwarted robbery, coming to us now secondhand, as opposed to thirdhand …
Apparently the robbery suspects confronted a player leaving the game in the parking lot, and a scuffle ensued. The first shots were reportedly fired at the door to gain entry, and the robbers continued shooting into the air once inside. They did indeed shoot one patron in the leg when he was slow to get on the ground as ordered.
Boutte’s armed nemesis and several others were smoking in the break room when the melee went down. One robber supposedly told these players they’d better not be coming out without cash — thinking maybe they were hiding it — and that’s when the poker-room hero emerged brandishing his own gun.
Boutte was shot at least four times in the abdomen and made it out to the parking lot before falling and dying.
A nervous wave has washed over the Houston poker underground — with action slower than normal, and some rooms looking to hire visible security.
Here’s the complete criminal record of Barron Glenn Boutte, the poker robber shot and killed in Houston last week. A lot of marijuana charges and some evading arrests. Pretty petty thuggish. Not a surprise that robbing a poker room seemed to provide him an opportunity to step up into a bigger game. Ahh, the poker dream …
The only thing that stands out to me is that the dude was so short — 5’5″, 110 pounds. Probably just a coincidence, but in many of the DFW robberies that we attributed to the “Dallas Poker Bandits”, there was always one distinctly tall guy (6’4″ish), and one distinctly short guy (5’5″ish).
But Boutte definitely seemed to be a Houston thug, not a Dallas guy who moved to Harris County when the games up North dried up.
Click here for details on Barron Boutte’s poker robbery gone awry, and below for his pre-poker criminal record.
The story behind an underground game in Houston that broke with a flurry of bullets last week — resulting in one fatality and two others wounded — is starting to emerge. Filtering through braggadocio, legal ambiguities, and the inherent fuzziness of thirdhand sources, here’s what we definitely know, what we are hearing, and then some speculation about an “inside job”. And what this robbery may or may not have to do with similar ones in Houston, Dallas, Arlington, and San Antonio.
Included is a semi-thorough timeline tracking the progression of violent poker robberies across Texas over the past 2+ years. The casualty tally so far: 2 dead, 4 wounded by non-fatal gunfire, at least 1 pistol-whipping, >150 players in the middle of it all (surrendering anywhere from a few hundred to more than $10,000 at a time). 3 arrested so far.
The game currently being talked about was known as Club 203, located in a southwest Houston semi-industrial warehouse complex, nestled in a nook about a quarter-mile from the intersection of a highway and major thoroughfare.
The dead robber’s name is Barron Glenn Boutte. (Anyone recognize the name?) He was a 24-year-old black male. The official cause of death is homicide/multiple gun shot wounds. It’s not clear where Barron was from, though one mention of him on the internet does suggest Houston.
The story behind an 