Texas casino on Judge Judy

There were a couple links to videos, but they're no longer available due to copyright violation. The gist of it is a 19 year old kid, high school dropout, hit 5 kings on a "keno" game (his words), and won $1300. The casino pays out in Walmart gift cards, and they stiffed him, claiming that he and his buddies rigged the game "with their cell phones". It had to be from about 4-5 years ago.

1) 19 years old?

2) Payoff in Walmart cards?

The plaintiff looked pretty simple, but he came across as a standup guy; he presented his case simply and without wavering in his account of what happened, and he presented corroborating witnesses. The defendant came across as a real sleazebag, a con man who most likely thought he could strongarm a dumb kid. He showed up with scant evidence and no witnesses. Judy let him twist for a while, let him doubletalk his way down several blind alleys before she scolded him, slammed the gavel and gave all the money to the kid.

It was scary, though. During testimony, the kid said that he basically dumps his entire life into the machines at this guy's Fun House.

In Texas, where I am from, there are a lot of illegal slot rooms. They often claim to pay out in walmart gift cards or in stuffed animals, in an ill advised attempt to disguise the illegal nature of their games. This is all fine and dandy thinking until the local police raid the gambling places.

My friend went to one of these places. He won $800 worth of stuffed animals. He was pissed when they actually took the stuffed animals off the walls and handed him the stuffed animals. He was really pissed as he was holding the stuffed animals, thinking he was going to walk out with the stuffed animals only. He calmed down when the owner told him to shut up and take the stuffed animals to "that guy standing over there".

Quote: klimate10

In Texas, where I am from, there are a lot of illegal slot rooms. They often claim to pay out in walmart gift cards or in stuffed animals, in an ill advised attempt to disguise the illegal nature of their games. This is all fine and dandy thinking until the local police raid the gambling places.

My friend went to one of these places. He won $800 worth of stuffed animals. He was pissed when they actually took the stuffed animals off the walls and handed him the stuffed animals. He was really pissed as he was holding the stuffed animals, thinking he was going to walk out with the stuffed animals only. He calmed down when the owner told him to shut up and take the stuffed animals to "that guy standing over there".

Stop saying stuffed animals. :)

Quote: klimate10

In Texas, where I am from, there are a lot of illegal slot rooms. They often claim to pay out in walmart gift cards or in stuffed animals, in an ill advised attempt to disguise the illegal nature of their games. This is all fine and dandy thinking until the local police raid the gambling places.

My friend went to one of these places. He won $800 worth of stuffed animals. He was pissed when they actually took the stuffed animals off the walls and handed him the stuffed animals. He was really pissed as he was holding the stuffed animals, thinking he was going to walk out with the stuffed animals only. He calmed down when the owner told him to shut up and take the stuffed animals to "that guy standing over there".

This sounds like it is modeled on Pachinko arcades in Japan. If you hit a "jackpot", you take your bucket of balls to the unmarked door next to the arcade where a helpful representative of the local yakuza, "purchases" them from you in cash.

Quote:

This sounds like it is modeled on Pachinko arcades in Japan. If you hit a "jackpot", you take your bucket of balls to the unmarked door next to the arcade where a helpful representative of the local yakuza, "purchases" them from you in cash.

Or a Box of Chocolates or scale-model toy is offered at the Palace, and again you go round the corner to the wall with a small hole in it and exchange your prize at that day's rate.

Promotion of gambling in Texas is a class A misdemeanor, which is the highest level of misdemeanor . Regardless, its still a misdemeanor. the local police will raid these places about twice a year. But there are so many of the machines that the local police used to not confiscate the machines (there was no room at the city locker to store all these machines). thus after the bust, the operators would be right back up and running. Rarely, if ever, was there ever jail or prison time. The operators made so much money that they just accepted the fine and misdemeanor as a cost of doing business.

About three years ago, our local police was subject to city council instruction/directive to actually confiscate the machines after a raid.

Well, the operators didn't actually own the machines. the machines were leased to the operators by a company out of either Mexico or some part of the US. the operators would cut the profits with the machines owners. and yes, these were strange machines. Like they had keno with kings queens, etc. These rooms would gross like 20,000 -60,000 per night! they're making so much money that the loss the machines made zero difference to the prevelance of the rooms. the owners of the machines would just ship the operators more machines when the police would confiscate them. Soon, the city owned thousands of these machines. And the police just stopped raiding the rooms.

I play legal micro stakes poker with a guy who is an operator of of these rooms. He says he gets paid 3,000 a night to man the rooms for the operators. He just has to say he owns the room whenever they get raided.

When I lived in Ohio it was fairly common to see video poker in a bar with a sign saying "for entertainment only". But if you won, you just cashed out anyway. Of course it had to be a certain kind of bar. This reminds me of that kind of thing.

Quote: klimate10

In Texas,

The cops even raided a Texas Hold 'em fundraiser benefit for some local person who had no medical insurance. Cops come storming in with guns drawn and hold little old ladies at gunpoint type of thing.

Quote: odiousgambit

When I lived in Ohio it was fairly common to see video poker in a bar with a sign saying "for entertainment only". But if you won, you just cashed out anyway. Of course it had to be a certain kind of bar. This reminds me of that kind of thing.

I used to work as a DJ at a bar that had one of these machines. Early in the evening, I would watch it while it did it's screen saver / play by itself mode. I didn't get it. I even threw a buck in, won a couple credits, played it down, and still didn't get the point. Very unexciting, and no strategy. What kind of stupid video game was this? I even saw people playing it, and still didn't get it.

Finally someone told me: At any time you can ask the bar owner for a "refund" of the credits. Suddenly, I saw the light.

Later on I learned that there was a switch in the back that would turn the machine into a regular arcade game (something like Asteroids). Flip the switch mid-game when the cops show up. Flip it back when they leave, and all your credits are still there.