> Now, people play poker, and cheat, and they want the government to police their poker games and make sure they're fair.

No, if you personally run a poker game in your house and cheat your friends the government doesn’t care. The FBI isn’t going to be interested.

If you join the mafia and run an organized crime ring that operates poker games as a business which systematically defrauds people for large amounts of money and funnels the proceeds to organized crime through money laundering operations, the FBI will be interested.

If you look at this story and only see “some people cheated at a poker game” you’re missing the real story. This was a full on organized crime business operation

Okay, a lot of people cheated at a lot of poker games? I feel like we're being redundant here.

So, their cheating was organized and systematic? Yeah, you can't really cheat consistently without having a scheme.

Did anyone really think the mafia were running fair backroom poker games?

It's not even lunch yet and "the mafia should be allowed to build onto their tower of crimes in peace" is a take that I don't think that will be beat today.

The poker games were run by the mafia, who pulled in a lot of cash by luring and cheating suckers. I want the FBI to stop scams that funnel money to criminal organizations.

A lot of cash? It says “at least $7m” over 6 years across supposedly 4 crime families and how many people? They’d have been better off opening up a Jimmy John’s franchise.

The key is a lot of cash, or cryptocurrency.

If you run a Jimmy John’s, most of your customers will pay with credit cards. Everything runs through banks. You can’t launder that easily. It’s all traceable. It’s all taxable.

Run a poker operation and you can get your marks to give you crypto, cash, or small transfers.

$7 million in pure cash and crypto proceeds from a poker game is a lot more valuable than $7 million in revenue from a sandwich shop for an organized crime operation.

> If you run a Jimmy John’s, most of your customers will pay with credit cards. Everything runs through banks. You can’t launder that easily.

You don't need to launder it, it was acquired legally

Fast food franchises aren’t generating $1M a year either. Ok a McDonald’s in a high traffic area can, but a sandwich shop anywhere? Nope.

We’re supposedly talking about 4 major crime families, it wouldn’t be one McDonalds it would be dozens and dozens. And all legal.

Nothing about this story makes sense other other than as yet another headline to try to get people talking about something other than Epstein.

Did illegal gambling take place? I’m sure. Were 4 different crime families investing significant resources to take home barely $1m/year? I’m extremely skeptical and given this is coming from Kash “I always look like I just did a line of coke” Patel, I’d say it’s more likely than not we’re getting incomplete, if not bad information

Yes, these corporations need to be stopped. Like Wells Fargo. Still trading in the market. Maybe we should go after the stock market as well.

https://violationtracker.goodjobsfirst.org/parent/wells-farg...

Situation is pretty bad if you can jail mafia only based on the cheating on poker.

If there's a business that's being run fraudulently then I want them to be held accountable for that.

I’m expecting some pardons will shape the expectation that this all could have been avoided with strategic political donations. In this era, what would you accept as a substitution for accountability?

"previously people could cheat, now they can't" ?? how is that bad.

That's not the part that's bad. I don't care whether they cheat or not. I don't want the government policing what is and isn't fair in a poker / NBA / etc game.

I think arresting people for cheating legitimizes backroom / mafia gambling. All the other rings (and those left from this one) can say "Look, those other guys got arrested. The law protects you. We don't want that to happen to us. Our game is definitely fair." Of course, they too are cheating.

The only reason the FBI cares here is probably because one of the victims had pull. If you or I get cheated, the FBI won't care about that.

> I don't want the government policing what is and isn't fair in a poker / NBA / etc game.

Operating a business that defrauds people is the domain of government enforcement.

I think you’re trying to reduce this to some sort of small scale friendly poker game between friends. It was not. It was an organized crime business operation that was systematically committing fraud.

Fraud is illegal and within scope of government enforcement.

The raison d'etre for the offense of fraud is to protect commerce.

The state / society needs to enforce a basic level of trust for Business A to buy widgets from Business B, and for Customer C to be employed, etc.

Betting on sports / poker / etc. is not part of that. Nobody is creating anything of value when you spin the roulette wheel. At best, the house wins and most players lose... and that is a harm to society. At worst, the house cheats or some subset of players cheat, and most players lose... and that too is a harm to society. (Edit: At worse worst, it leads to violence, extortion, etc...)

Gambling does not deserve the legitimacy of being policed.

If the police don't police it then the marks will pay someone to whack the cheaters.

> I think arresting people for cheating legitimizes backroom / mafia gambling. All the other rings (and those left from this one) can say "Look, those other guys got arrested. The law protects you."

Disagree, this case demonstrates the exact opposite -- you think your underground game is legit because there's celebrities playing? Think again, it's a far more sophisticated scam operation than you could imagine.

> The only reason the FBI cares here is probably because one of the victims had pull.

Again, I doubt it. Likely it's because the mafia is involved, and according to the indictment "the defendants and their co-conspirators used threats of force and violence to secure the repayment of debts from illegal poker games."

did you read the article?

While I agree that they're probably not arguing in good faith, “Did you even read the article?” is explicitly called out in the hn guidelines.

I think the comment goes more in the direction: “previously playing poker was a totally private thing, didn’t cost me a dime, now part of my taxes is used for that”

I'd appreciate it if the police could help stop cheating in my kids' soccer game as well. One of those brats keeps pretending to be injured! Lock him up.

you're right, they should outlaw gambling as a business because it's inherently predatory, rigged ("the house always wins" isn't just a cute phrase) and has addiction issues that disproportionately impact the poor