Swat team raids private poker game--takes all the money.

[Kingofalldems]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2015/01/27/fairfax-swat-team-raids-high-stakes-great-falls-poker-game-seizes-cash-terrifies-players/

Thoughts anyone?

[mythology]

1. I have two thoughts about this

1. Clearly the police are overreacting and need to be spanked as well as having their SWAT unit yanked as they obviously have no idea how to use it.

2. The players should probably figure out that their local police apparently have very little to do and move their game outside of that jurisdiction. It's really pretty stupid to get your game busted repeatedly when you could avoid that.

[newfie11]

2. I had no idea this was still against the law.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

3. My thoughts? Sure. Here ya go --

[Kelvin Mace]

4. Fear is the product

now sold by the police.

[dilby]

5. This was not some regular poker game.

The minimum buy in was $20,000 and the guy who hosted it was getting a cut on the buy in. This was very much illegal and the players knew it.

[Aerows]

19. Who were they hurting?

What menace to public safety were they causing by having a poker game in some guy's basement? I don't gamble because it is stupid, in my view, but who were they bothering?

[dilby]

21. How about they most likely were not reporting the gambling winnings on their taxes since

it was some guys basement. Rich people throwing money back and forth and not reporting it to the IRS is a problem that affects you and me. If they were dealing in small dollars I would not care but not reporting $150,000 in taxable income is a problem.

[Aerows]

23. They got taxed on the money somewhere along the line

Or do people normally just stumble onto $150,000 just sitting around in the couch cushions?

Seriously, I don't gamble (other than once in a blue moon buying a lottery ticket when the jackpot gets insanely high) so I don't know. I kind of think if you are dumb enough to throw that amount of money away, you should be allowed to be that idiotic.

[dilby]

25. Doesn't matter if they were taxed before on that money.

All gambling winnings are reported to the IRS, if you buy a lotto ticket for $5 and win $5,000,000 you don't get to tell the IRS you are not paying taxes on the $5,000,000 because you already paid taxes on the $5. This is the biggest issue with this setup in the guys basement, it was circumventing the tax system.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

34. That's the same (il)logic right wingers use against inheritance taxes.

The money was taxed already.

Guess what. The money my customers pay to me was taxed already. So why should I have to pay taxes on it?

I really could care less about some basement gambling operation. And I certainly don't think it needed to be SWATed.

But often times big games like that have an organized crime component.

[Aerows]

35. Well, that does make sense

it just seems overboard to SWAT them, as you said.

[snooper2]

22. and who is the victim of this "crime" again?

[dilby]

26. The tax payers.

This underground gambling system circumvents the tax system. These guys were not going to report the earnings to the IRS it's the whole reason you do this over going to a casino and putting up the same amount of cash.

[snooper2]

27. So our next poker game happens to be at my house in two weeks

I'll be sure to let everyone know that I have to take taxes out of the winnings and give them to city hall.

[dilby]

29. There is a huge difference between someone not reporting $100 in winnnings

and someone who does not report $150,000 in winnings. But according to the IRS you need to report your gambling winnings so you should still report the $20-$100 you might win with your neighbors just to be fair on your taxes.

[dissentient]

6. The police divvied up some of the winnings, and pocketed them secretly. You gotta earn a living

somehow.

[closeupready]

7. You first. What are your thoughts?

[Kingofalldems]

9. It was armed robbery by the cops.

They kept 60% of the money. Cops have become thugs in many cases.

Oh yeah and I will never give any money to any organization that claims to help them, they seem to be rolling in cash.

[closeupready]

10. Yup. I agree. A question for you:

do you think they would have performed this raid if they had been prohibited from carrying lethal weapons? (This is strictly an intellectual exercise, as I know what SWAT teams are for.)

[Kingofalldems]

11. No. But in the comments section someone said

they could have used one retired detective with a clipboard.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

8. Why is it illegal?

It's not obvious to me why this is illegal - is there a good reason for it?

But, either way, given that it is, it doesn't sound like the police acted improperly in enforcing that law.

[Kingofalldems]

12. Because there was a piece taken from all or some antes.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

13. No, I mean "why does the law exist?", not "what law was broken?" n.T.

[Kingofalldems]

16. Don't know.

[hack89]

18. Gambling is heavily regulated by the states for several reasons

one is because gambling is been historically associated with organized crime. Large high stakes games like this one make a lot of money for organized crime.

Secondly, the states get a lot of money from legal gambling in the form of licenses and taxes - illegal gambling cuts into their revenue.

[Takket]

14. America can sleep safer tonight!

[msanthrope]

15. I'd start a chapter of FSM church, and get a charitable gaming license. nt

[Aerows]

20. LOL!

Good idea. We're all Pastafarians now.

Ramen.

[msanthrope]

30. If churches can have bingo, why not poker for the divine

noodly one.

[a kennedy]

17. There was a TV show about poker games incognito......

http://www.carbonpoker.ag/blog/general/discovery-channel-no-underground-poke/ I kinda enjoyed it.....

[bobclark86]

24. That's a lot of cash to throw around...

They've got something else on these guys, for sure.

[Malraiders]

28. A Fairfax county Va swat team once raided and killed a man for

betting on a football game:

http://fairfaxcountypolicegreatesthits.blogspot.com/2011/01/swat-team-kills-man-accused-of-betting.html

[msanthrope]

31. According to the article.....it's the same cop. nt

[Kingofalldems]

33. The same cop who set that guy up was in on this raid.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

36. Post #3

[lpbk2713]

32. Another instance where the "good guys" are worse than the bad guys.

I'll have to be pretty bad off if I ever have to call law enforcement for help.