4 ms·

The FBI is going to take time building up the case, flipping people, getting recordings, and trying to get as many people involved to not just stop the games bu

The FBI is going to take time building up the case, flipping people, getting recordings, and trying to get as many people involved to not just stop the games but hopefully take down the entire crime families involved. LA Poker pros will start talking as soon as they suspect something fishy.

duped 1y ago
The FBI is also struggling for legitimacy at this point in history
- yieldcrv 1y ago
  I think they’re also doing good investigations into local crime rings that the states and prior administrations didn’t touch The political prosecution vendettas are dumb but here in LA they are disrupting “Armenian” crime rings
- parineum 1y ago
  Name a decade without a major FBI scandal
  - DonHopkins 1y ago
    Name a less competent FBI director ever.
  - dragonwriter 1y ago
    The difference it that what used to be a decade-defining major FBI scandal is more like monthly in the current administration.
- mrandish 1y ago
  This did strike me as quite a small scale crime for all the attention it's getting. I guess the notable part is using a couple celebrity athletes to recruit marks for rigged high-stakes poker games. If you think about it, poker games don't scale up into a truly big money. After paying off everyone involved, maybe they clear a few hundred grand in cash? That's chump change in modern organized crime.
mattmaroon 1y ago
They almost certainly already have done much of this if they’re going public now. What makes it to the media in the beginning is only ever the proverbial tip of the iceberg.
- Aurornis 1y ago
  > They almost certainly already have done much of this if they’re going public now. Normally I'd agree, but this administration is known for pushing to release public distractions whenever they can.
_the_inflator 1y ago
Exactly. Structures, men behind, organizations involved, networks and other crimes indicated or discovered for example money laundering, betting. It takes time to build a case. Some laws need people working together and a one time event testing a new table and accidentally having lots of cash in the bags as well as so-called famous people showing up can simply happen by chance. It is complicated.
- JohnMakin 1y ago
  I'm not sure I believe this. It seems you can just walk into one of these places and roll the whole place, confiscate electronics, and make all the necessary connections fairly quickly. These games aren't a secret and never have been. I don't like the private (illegal) scene because it's killed action in casinos and games I used to love playing in. The risk to me of breaking the law, being robbed/scammed, or worse is not worth it to play in these games and I wish they'd go away. Even the mafia angle - the NY families must have fallen a long way if they're resorting to high profile but ultimately petty scams like this. This seems like PR for the FBI and nothing more, like I said up thread this has been common knowledge for years.
  - philistine 1y ago
    > the NY families must have fallen a long way if they're resorting to high profile but ultimately petty scams like this The presence of petty scams does not indicate they have stopped their large scale operations. The Mafia has always done scams like this; it's basically the bush leagues to train for the really big stuff.
  - mrandish 1y ago
    > NY families must have fallen a long way I spent a fun few hours a couple years back deep diving into what has become of the old-school "Goodfellas"-style mob these days. Looking into both media reports as well as posts by 'mob fans' - niche forums of those who obsessively follow mob and mob adjacent activities via open-source intel methods - I got the sense the traditional Italian mob families have indeed shrunk to a smaller, sadder version of what they once were due to being eclipsed by new, different kinds of organized crime. Guys who are known "made men" getting out of prison after doing 10-15 and then ending up doing relatively nickel and dime crimes like daylight armed robbery of a jewelry store themselves for lack of enough income. 25 years ago guys like that wouldn't normally do that stuff themselves. Others have even sunk to basically LARPing being old-school mobsters on social media. It seems there are two key drivers behind the decline: the real money in organized crime has shifted to new kinds of activities which scale better and can grow much larger. That's attracted new competitors. Some are smarter, some more brutal and some which are both. There's also an aspect that these new, bigger opportunities are far more complex, long-term and can also require successfully operating legitimate businesses as one necessary component. I guess it's not surprising. Even illicit industries undergo accelerating change over time. The old crime families still exist and can certainly still be dangerous - they're just no longer the top of the criminal food chain in terms of earnings.
solean 1y ago
Matt Berkey called out this exact game a couple years ago: https://x.com/RTNBA/status/1981433175390687603 https://x.com/RTNBA/status/1981433175390687603

duped 1y ago

The FBI is also struggling for legitimacy at this point in history

yieldcrv 1y ago
I think they’re also doing good investigations into local crime rings that the states and prior administrations didn’t touch The political prosecution vendettas are dumb but here in LA they are disrupting “Armenian” crime rings
parineum 1y ago
Name a decade without a major FBI scandal
- DonHopkins 1y ago
  Name a less competent FBI director ever.
- dragonwriter 1y ago
  The difference it that what used to be a decade-defining major FBI scandal is more like monthly in the current administration.
mrandish 1y ago
This did strike me as quite a small scale crime for all the attention it's getting. I guess the notable part is using a couple celebrity athletes to recruit marks for rigged high-stakes poker games. If you think about it, poker games don't scale up into a truly big money. After paying off everyone involved, maybe they clear a few hundred grand in cash? That's chump change in modern organized crime.

mattmaroon 1y ago

They almost certainly already have done much of this if they’re going public now. What makes it to the media in the beginning is only ever the proverbial tip of the iceberg.

Aurornis 1y ago
> They almost certainly already have done much of this if they’re going public now. Normally I'd agree, but this administration is known for pushing to release public distractions whenever they can.

_the_inflator 1y ago

Exactly. Structures, men behind, organizations involved, networks and other crimes indicated or discovered for example money laundering, betting. It takes time to build a case. Some laws need people working together and a one time event testing a new table and accidentally having lots of cash in the bags as well as so-called famous people showing up can simply happen by chance. It is complicated.

JohnMakin 1y ago
I'm not sure I believe this. It seems you can just walk into one of these places and roll the whole place, confiscate electronics, and make all the necessary connections fairly quickly. These games aren't a secret and never have been. I don't like the private (illegal) scene because it's killed action in casinos and games I used to love playing in. The risk to me of breaking the law, being robbed/scammed, or worse is not worth it to play in these games and I wish they'd go away. Even the mafia angle - the NY families must have fallen a long way if they're resorting to high profile but ultimately petty scams like this. This seems like PR for the FBI and nothing more, like I said up thread this has been common knowledge for years.
- philistine 1y ago
  > the NY families must have fallen a long way if they're resorting to high profile but ultimately petty scams like this The presence of petty scams does not indicate they have stopped their large scale operations. The Mafia has always done scams like this; it's basically the bush leagues to train for the really big stuff.
- mrandish 1y ago
  > NY families must have fallen a long way I spent a fun few hours a couple years back deep diving into what has become of the old-school "Goodfellas"-style mob these days. Looking into both media reports as well as posts by 'mob fans' - niche forums of those who obsessively follow mob and mob adjacent activities via open-source intel methods - I got the sense the traditional Italian mob families have indeed shrunk to a smaller, sadder version of what they once were due to being eclipsed by new, different kinds of organized crime. Guys who are known "made men" getting out of prison after doing 10-15 and then ending up doing relatively nickel and dime crimes like daylight armed robbery of a jewelry store themselves for lack of enough income. 25 years ago guys like that wouldn't normally do that stuff themselves. Others have even sunk to basically LARPing being old-school mobsters on social media. It seems there are two key drivers behind the decline: the real money in organized crime has shifted to new kinds of activities which scale better and can grow much larger. That's attracted new competitors. Some are smarter, some more brutal and some which are both. There's also an aspect that these new, bigger opportunities are far more complex, long-term and can also require successfully operating legitimate businesses as one necessary component. I guess it's not surprising. Even illicit industries undergo accelerating change over time. The old crime families still exist and can certainly still be dangerous - they're just no longer the top of the criminal food chain in terms of earnings.

solean 1y ago

Matt Berkey called out this exact game a couple years ago: https://x.com/RTNBA/status/1981433175390687603 https://x.com/RTNBA/status/1981433175390687603