• Prime Social Poker Club Raid Guide
• Prime Social Poker Club Raid 2

• Owners and employees from Prime Social Poker Room and Post Oak Poker Club are charged with money laundering as part of the organized crime investigation by HPD and the Harris County District.
• HOUSTON — Nine people were charged Wednesday with money laundering as police and prosecutors raided two poker clubs in west Houston. The Houston Police Department and Harris County District.
• Two social poker clubs, Post Oak Poker Club and the Prime Social Poker Club, came under the radar of Houston authorities for violating the state’s gambling regulations. The authorities conducted raids at the venues arresting nine people for the alleged violations.

Officers raided Prime Social on Westheimer and Post Oak Poker Club on the West Loop. The raids happened at the Post Oak Poker Club at 1001 West Loop South and the Prime Social Poker Club at 7801 Westheimer Road. At the Westheimer Road location, both local and federal officials.

Houston, Texas authorities on Tuesday, May 1 raided two West Houston social clubs offering real-money poker games, according to local news reports and a press statement on the arrest issued by the Harris County (TX) District Attorney’s Office, which encompasses greater Houston. Officers conducted raids on Post Oak Poker Club and the Prime Social Poker Club, arresting nine owners or operators of the businesses and seizing computers, records, and gaming equipment. Bank accounts connected to the operation of the two clubs, through which millions of dollars has allegedly flowed, were frozen and are also subject to possible seizure.

The two nominally “private” clubs are among several in the Houston area that have attempted to exploit possible loopholes in Texas’s strict anti-gaming laws. One such loophole allows in Texas law offers protection when the gambling takes place in a private place, and no person receives an “economic benefit” beyond personal winnings. Any poker game charging rake woulld necessarily run afoul of those restrictions, though details of how the games are operated inside these semi-private Houston clubs is not widely available.

“Poker rooms are illegal in the State of Texas,” said Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg. “We are changing the paradigm regarding illegal gambling by moving up the criminal chain and pursuing felony money laundering and engaging in organized crime charges against owners and operators. Players are not being targeted.”

“We can’t allow illegal gambling to go on,” Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo said. “It drives organized crime and fuels other criminal activity.”

A $150,000 prize-pool guaranteed tournament to be held at Prime Social May 1-5 was one of the immediate casualties of the raids. The tourney appears to have been sponsored in part by prominent tourney-schedule site Poke Atlas.

The nine people arrested were charged with various first-degree felonies resulting from what Ogg’s office claimed was a two-year investigation, which actually predated the opening of the newer of the two clubs. Prime Social Poker Club opened just last year. The investigation was a joint effort between the District Attorney’s Office’s Money Laundering Division and the Houston Police Department’s Vice Division. The raids culminate the second large anti-gambling investigation in the greater Houston area, following the arrest of over 30 people (including three police officers) and other “known” Houston-area gambling figures.

Houston Police and the District Attorney’s Office wrapped up an investigation last year that resulted in the arrest of nearly three dozen people, including three police officers and key gambling figures in Chinatown and elsewhere.

These are the locations of the clubs and the names of the people charged with running the allegedly illegal gambling operations:

Post Oak Poker Club, 1001 West Loop South, Suite 400

• Daniel Jeffery Kebort, owner
• William Jack Heuer III, owner
• Alan Harris Chodrow, owner
• Sergio Diaz Cabrera, owner
• Kevin Louis Chodrow, owner

Prime Social Poker Room, 7801 Westheimer Rd.

• Dean Maddox, owner
• Mary Switzer, comptroller
• Brent J. Pollack, general manager
• Steven Farshid, asst. general manager

Harris County DA Ogg’s office has yet to issue a detailed list of the exact illegal-gambling charges facing the games’ operators. Such a list of charges is likely to be made available when the nine are arraigned in Harris County court.

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Two cardrooms were raided in Houston, Texas last week, aslaw enforcement works to crackdown on such gambling establishments and illegalactivity. The Prime Social Club and the Post Oak Poker Club were both raidedlast week by Vice Division officers within the Houston police department. Nine individualswere arrested as part of the raid, facing organized criminal activity charges aswell as money laundering.

According to Kim Ogg, the District Attorney, poker rooms arenot legal in Texas. The state has decided to change the way they take on illegalgambling by now charging those taking part with money laundering charges as wellas being considered engaging in organized criminal activity.

During the raid, officers seized computers along with harddrives. During the raid at the Prime Social Club, a $580 no limit hold’em tournamentwas interrupted. Players were expecting to compete for $150,000 in prize moneybut instead, were subject to a police raid.

According to local police, the department is no longer goingto tolerate the poker gaming activity. The raids last week are considered biggerones due to the rooms in question. According to Houston Police Chief ArtAcevedo, the poker rooms need to be shut down. If such facilities are indemand, then legislature needs to authorize the gaming option. Until then, thepolice department is going to do their job and shut the facilities down.

The cardrooms however, do not feel they are breaking thelaw. The operators feel like they are in full compliance of state laws since thegames do not collect a rake. The rooms only take a membership fee and are considereda private club. The operators say they are only facilitating gameplay betweenthe players. The cardrooms feel like they have nothing to hide and arepromoting a legitimate business.

It will be interesting to see how the charges play out andwho is right, the police or the cardroom operators.

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