Punishment For Underground Poker Room In Colorado?

[Don\\\'t Do It!]

[ QUOTE ]
I live in Colorado and in February the CBI and a SWAT team came and busted our game. It was a club of sorts in Pueblo with about 50 players. No rake was being dropped and it was a $50 buy-in tourney. We had a couple of elderly players there and it was a sad sight to see them being frisked. It was quite ridiculous. Anyway, all players received a ticket for illegal gambling while the dealers received a class 2 misdeamor for "encouraging players to gamble illegally". I got off with a $200 donation and about $50 in court costs. There was no rake being dropped but there was a $15 monthly membership fee to play there, which went towards food and upkeep of the building as the owner was a poker enthusiast and let us play there for free. Total joke. There are no more games around here anymore. I have to drive to lame Cripple Creek to play $5 limit hold'em if I wanna play. If you are going to have a home game, make sure that you arent charging anyone to play and that you ARENT dropping a rake. Also, the gaming commision told me that everyone has to know everyone... thats what makes it a "social home game". It is okay to play for money as long as you abide by those rules.

[/ QUOTE ]so what happened to the guy who ran the game?

[callmedonnie]

I lived in Boulder for a few years and used to play at a place in Denver. It was busted, I wasn't there. I never played cash there, from everything I heard the rake was ridiculous. The tournaments were fine, no monthly fee, just a fee of the entry. Here are two articles about the bust.

I remember reading this in the paper right after it happened. This has considerably more detail. I never went back, and wasn't particularly friendly with anyone that was there at the time. I did get a call from one of the dealers a week or so after letting me know they were back up and running though.