From the Chicago Tribune:
Poker players, police seeing who will blink first
By John Bebow
Tribune staff reporter
Published December 19, 2004
The new guy called himself “Bobby.” He looked to be in his 40s, by far the oldest player in a weekly Sunday night Texas Hold ‘Em poker game between waiters and college students in Logan Square.
As usual, $20 was all it took to get into the small-stakes game on Dec. 5 in David Sarrett’s apartment. On the fifth hand, two queens slid face down across the green felt and stopped in front of the new guy, giving him a premium hand. But “Bobby,” an undercover vice cop, didn’t play the cards. He was playing a different game.
“Gambling police–game’s over,” Sarrett recalled three more plainclothes officers suddenly announcing after he saw them outside and welcomed them in.
“Yeah, sure,” said Sarrett, 28, a tall, thin waiter who’s glad to deal cards to strangers and likes to take a pull from a bottle of Wild Turkey after winning big pots. “We’ll make room for you.”
“No, really,” an officer said. “Gambling police. Game’s over.”
With poker chips flying off store shelves and legions of newbies saying “Deal me in” after watching televised Hold ‘Em tournaments, Chicago police are using the Internet to scout illegal card games in private homes.
“We’re just starting to write a few more [misdemeanor gambling tickets] now,” police spokesman David Bayless said. “Since the emergence of poker as a fad, we’re going to be looking at it. We’re always advising people not to invite strangers into their homes.”
Home gambling, including small-time poker games, is illegal under Chicago’s municipal code and Illinois law. The $20 it costs to enter Sarrett’s game is chump change in a thriving local underground poker circuit where pots can reach hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars. Yet Sarrett and several of his guests that night face fines of up to $200 at a February court hearing.
News of the bust spread quickly through a network of dozens of Chicago card players–computer programmers, lawyers, accountants, doctors, theater performers, and others from many walks of life–who communicate online.
They are changing locations and schedules, closing games to strangers–and shaking their heads at the police attention.
“Like they don’t have anything else to do than bust $20 card games,” said James McManus, a high-stakes player and Chicago author of the popular poker tome, “Positively Fifth Street.”
“It’s pretty outrageous,” McManus said. “But we live in the worst poker city I know. The legislature is very hostile to poker. They want us putting our money in slot machines and lottery tickets.”
In the last month, police ticketed 18 card players in a North Myrtle Beach, S.C., hotel room, raided a late-night game with an entry fee of $1,000 in Greensboro, N.C., and seized $30,000 from the leader of a Brockton, Mass., game in a building that also housed a day-care center.
In Chicago, police said their motivation is to break up organized poker rings where hosts pocket a “rake”–a percentage of the pot.
“It’s the games that are being hosted for profit that are of concern to us because those could escalate into higher stakes and people not being able to cover their bets,” Bayless said. “We’re not going after weekly, friendly home games.”
Suburban police officials said they’ve noticed the poker fad but haven’t found reason to start busting games. Skokie police broke up one game with a rake about 18 months ago, but none since, said Sgt. Scott Anderson.
“In July we had kids shooting craps in front of the library,” said Oak Park Deputy Chief Bob Scianna. “But we’ve had no complaints about poker.”
Sarrett argued that his game in Logan Square is the definition of friendly, no-rake poker.
“If they’re writing me a ticket, it’s pretty much the end of finding friendly games online,” Sarrett said.
Sarrett said he opened his house to poker players in April after watching Hold `Em tournaments on television.
“It’s been spoon-fed to us,” he said. “It’s the new craze.”
He’s hosted all but three Sundays since. The game starts at 11 p.m. and ends at 6 a.m. “By then, either someone’s lost too much or gotten too drunk,” Sarrett said, estimating that about 30 different people–many of them strangers–have sampled the game in the last eight months.
Some players, including “Bobby” the undercover cop, discovered Sarrett’s game through a Web site called homepokergames.com. It lists about 200 active games across Illinois, 4,000 games nationwide and 6,000 players looking for action, said Kieran Kiely, 31, who started the site about 18 months ago.
Carter Sims, 20, a sophomore at the University of Illinois-Chicago and a regular at Sarrett’s game, said he heard from “Bobby” after posting notice of a game on homepokergames.com. Sims invited the newcomer to Sarrett’s house. When “Bobby” showed up, he tried to buy in for $200–10 times the normal amount, Sarrett and Sims said.
“They thought they were breaking up a much bigger game,” Sims said.
Sarrett and Sims said police seized all $160 players had on the table that night. Bayless confirmed the seizure was about $200. He stopped short of saying police were disappointed in the bust, but said “you always want to get the big fish.”
Other game organizers have scrambled to make sure they’re not next on “Bobby’s” hit list.
One host, for example, now announces upcoming “seminars” instead of card games. Another, North Sider Hal Kilgore, has closed his e-mail list to new players “due to recent security concerns.” He said he hosts an occasional game without a rake.
Police attention “is certainly not going to stop us from playing, but we are going to be more careful about who we invite,” Kilgore said. “I think we’re at a point now where we have a solid core of players we can trust.”
As police seized the cards, cash, and a handful of chips as evidence, Sarrett’s crowd noticed “Bobby’s” wasted pair of queens. The bust was over by midnight. When the cops left, the players pulled fresh $20 bills from their wallets, stacked more chips, cut a fresh deck, and played almost until dawn.
Copyright © 2004, Chicago Tribune