My Effin Home Game Got Robbed!

[pfapfap]

Oh wow, that sucks. I was just today thinking about security at my game. We have about the situation you describe, except 25c/50c, and usually about $1200 in the room. I always figure there are enough of us that just some brutes wouldn't be able to pull anything, but if someone wanted the purse, hey, take it, you need it more than I do.

I am in a mildly not-friendly place after dark. I'm in a back house through a gate and a yard, perhaps I should put up a combo lock. Wouldn't stop someone setting it up, but would cut down on randomness.

It's entirely possible the offenders merely overheard someone talking about the game. Sickening to think someone involved set it up. I don't think any of my current crew would do that. So far the biggest danger is keeping sharks at bay.

I hope the game's able to get together. Pare it down to only trusted people. You're not the only one who wants to play. Change the location, tighten security measures, keep it private. In time, it'll grow again.

[Zetack]

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After a few days, when you are ready to talk about it, I have some questions for you. The answers might help other home games think about security:

1) Is the area the game was in a more likely robbery target than others? Would you have been as likely to get carjacked or mugged on the street?

2) How was the game advertised? Since it was every Wednesday, was that an easily-discovered fact (by the volume of cars)?

3) How were new players brought into the game?

I'd want to chase down the possibly source of this and (kill) cut off the robbers (maim). It could (destroy) happen again, at different area games. You don't want to let that happen, if possible.

Tough break for them, lucky break for you (except for the game death).

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Larry, unfortunately, there isn't anything really obvious to do on this one to make it safer.

The area seems decent, its in a brand new development, either a condo or townhouse or something, with no real drive by traffic other than people going to or from their houses in the development. Wasn't particularly near any bad areas either. I'd say no chance of carjacking or mugging anywhere near the game.

2. The volume of cars was not something that I think would've given the game away, there were plenty of parking spaces and everybody pretty much fit into a space. It wasn't one of those, the cars spill out of the driveway and all up and down the street situations. The only way a robber would have heard about this game is from somebody playing in it.

There was no advertisement, it was all word of mouth. The host for a while (and may still have been, I'm not sure) was giving players a who brought a new player a bonus of 10% of the starting player's first buy-in (up to ten dollar bonus). Players who came got on his cell phone or email list and got a text msg or email before every game. No other advertising.

3. New players either came with somebody or called and said hey I know so and so. So it was all referals but there wasn't any kind of strict, somebody's got to vouch for you kind of thing.


Other points you didn't ask about. The players were predominantly college kids or college age with a smattering of older dudes like me.

No real obvious suspects. We have one major (at least by our standards) gangster but quite frankly, 700 bucks split four ways would't be particularly interesting to him, and I'm sure he wouldn't want to kill the game either, he just likes the action. Not to mention that his federal probation officer would probably frown on it.

A couple of kids like to show up having taken a few bars (ah the slang we learn hanging out with the kids these days) and drink beer, generally not much alcohol drinking other than those two guys though.

There was one pretty obnoxious kid who liked to hit and run, but was such a chip spewer that he rarely got the opportunity. And the fact that he was kind of a jerk doesn't really make him a suspect.

The three robbers were apparently black guys, which is suspicious only because we don't have many black guys on our list (for some reason we actually have more chineese guys playing than black guys). One of our fairly infrequent guys (he started up his own game and doesn't show up at ours much anymore) is a big scary looking black dude, but it turns out he's a really nice guy so its hard to imagine him setting us up. He has a cousin, though, who's played with us a handful of times who is a bit of a punk and has been in some trouble with the law and spent some time in jail. He'd be a good one to be suspicious of, but I've played with him in three or four different games going back a year and a half, never had any trouble with him, or heard of anybody having any trouble with him, and he absolutely knows of games around town with much more money on the table and no more security than we have. So that doesn't make sense. And we certainly had no reason to bar him. Heck, If anybody had asked I would've said he's fine based on my prior experience in other games.

The game had a small rake (10% capped at three dollars). Host provided food and drinks but no alcohol (you could BYOB) and asked folks not to smoke pot outside the apartment.

He started off just running a Wed game and then went to Mon and Wed and had just recently added a Friday night 1/2 game.

It was a real nice, small limit, friendly game. With no real obvious security problems other than a large player base and widespread word of mouth about the game.


So I don't really think I have advice for anybody. Just one of those fluke things I think, word getting into the wrong person's ear. Hard to avoid when you depend on word of mouth to keep your game thriving.



--Zetack

[Rottersod]

Honestly, it sounds like too many people knew about this game. Figure every one of the players (especially the college kids) told at least 3 of their friends and then multiply how many of those people passed that information on. Once you go past the one table, same players game you open your game up to these kind of attacks. I'm not sure if there's anything you can do to prevent this except for making the new game smaller.

[Emperor]

HS home game security = dog in the yard + security system with accessible panic button + couple regulars who can carry + 911 on speed dial...

[TomBrooks]

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[ QUOTE ]
2) How was the game advertised? 3) How were new players brought into the game?

[/ QUOTE ] The host for a while (and may still have been, I'm not sure) was giving players a who brought a new player a bonus of 10% of the starting player's first buy-in (up to ten dollar bonus).

3. New players either came with somebody or called and said hey I know so and so. So it was all referals but there wasn't any kind of strict, somebody's got to vouch for you kind of thing.

The game had a small rake (10% capped at three dollars). Host provided food and drinks but no alcohol

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Offering that 10% bonus seems to me like it could be problematic. It provides a monetary incentive to tell people about the game which could inhibit discretion.

Perhaps getting someone to vouch for new players wouldn't be a bad idea.

You consider 10% to $3 a small rake? 10% is a huge rake. The host of this game must be making some profit from it unless he is putting out one hell of a spread. That factor is at odds with excercising discretion in who comes to the game too.

I think those three factors made this particular game more at risk that it could otherwise have been.

[Zetack]

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You consider 10% to $3 a small rake? 10% is a huge rake. The host of this game must be making some profit



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Given that I like to play big pots and there's not dealer tipping, yeah not too bad. Of course he's making some money, the large outlay for some pretty nice paulsons, table, and chairs, notwithstanding.

Perhaps it just seems like a small rake to me, though, in comparison to my favorite local 1/2 NL game, which I don't get to play in much due to scheduling issues, which has a (bend over and spread-em) cap of nine bucks on the rake AND has dealer tipping. And that's still a great, juicy juice of a game.

--Zetack

[mason55]

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couple regulars who can carry

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Not to jack this thread too much, but I don't think that if three dudes showed up with guns I would really want players pulling out their guns as well.



"Now when you yell at me, it makes me nervous. And when I get nervous, I get scared. And when motherfers get scared, that's when motherfers accidentally get shot."

[The Bandit Fish]

Couple of Mossbergs with some 00 buck or even slugs in plain view might go a long way to discourage things like this.

[TomBrooks]

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[ QUOTE ]
You consider 10% to $3 a small rake?

[/ QUOTE ]Given that I like to play big pots and there's not dealer tipping, yeah not too bad. Of course he's making some money, the large outlay for some pretty nice paulsons, table and chairs, notwithstanding. Perhaps it just seems like a small rake to me in comparison to my favorite local 1/2 NL game which has a cap of nine bucks AND dealer tipping.

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It's a small rake compared to a casino or card club I guess, but it seems like a big rake for a home game...big enough to take it out of the Friendly-Bunch-of-Guys catagory and into the Host-Is-Running-a-Game-For-Profit catagory. He's probably pulling in about $50/hour before expenses I'd guess. Cheers.

[canis582]

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Couple of Mossbergs with some 00 buck or even slugs in plain view might go a long way to discourage things like this.

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If anyone would try to rob my homegame, it would be buck buck for them.

Who said tehy had $1200 at a 25/50c game? $600 would have been the biggest night ever at mine.