Many players who opt to spend their time and money at their local home game rather than going to a brick and mortar casino cite the comfort and security they derive from a weekly game with familiar faces as a driving force behind their decision. Recent events in Houston, Texas may have home game players thinking twice about their safety and security after an attempted robbery of a local game resulted in the shooting death of one of the assailants.
In the early hours of Thursday morning three masked men ambushed a card game being held at a shopping center in southwest Houston. The robbers knocked down the door of the game around 2AM and demanded all of the game’s participants hand over their cash and valuables. One of the players pulled their own pistol on the assailants and in the melee of the three robbers trying to get away, one of them was shot and killed. The Houston Chronicle reported that another patron of the game was injured during the attack and was rushed to a nearby hospital for treatment. Meanwhile, the other two unidentified assailants are still on the loose.
When police arrived on the scene they discovered the body of the assailant as well as 9mm bullet casings in the parking lot of the strip mall. Several details about the incident, such as the number of shots fired and possible suspects in the case have not been released by the Houston police department at this time.
The underground card room was located in an unmarked unit of an office park behind the shopping center. In an interview with the Chronicle, Houston homicide detective Sgt. Juan M. De La Cruz referred to the establishment as a “clubhouse” and disclosed that it was a longtime patron of the clubhouse who pulled a weapon on the robbers. The newspaper’s report went on to say that police did not arrest anyone when they arrived on the scene and the vice squad was not called in because they could not determine whether or not it was a legal poker game at the present time. In Texas, like many other states, private poker game and home games are fully legal under the law as long as no party is raking anything from the pots or prize pools.
The Houston vice squad has organized several raids on similar home games over the past five years. In 2005 several owners of local bars and restaurants were fined for hosting Texas Hold’em tournaments in their establishments. Many tournament organizers believed they were operating a legal game since they were not taking any juice from the prize pools, but Houston police contended that because the games were being run in a public place rather than a private establishment like someone’s home they were illegal.
In 2007, Houston’s vice division mounted a series of poker raids on clubs similar to the one involved in Thursday’s shooting. An October 2007 raid of a local illegal poker room known as The Palms was one of the more widely publicized events of its kind. The vice squad sent in undercover police officers to investigate the establishment and determine whether or not it was operating a legal card game. After a lengthy investigation the vice squad and SWAT teams raided the establishment, seized $10,000 in cash plus chips and other poker paraphenalia and arrested 13 people.
At this time no one involved in this week’s robbery has been arrested and the police have not disclosed the identity of anyone involved in the case.
