RUMOR OF FEDERAL CRACKDOWN ON POKER ROOMS LOOMING IN HOUSTON TEXAS!

Houston Curtis
Jun 3, 2024
7 min read

Updated: Jun 5, 2024

Cheating scandals, tax evasion, illegal gambling, money laundering prostitution and other nefarious activities could result in a raid on criminally ran poker rooms in Houston Texas.

Welcome to the debut of my Poker Cheating Exposed Blog. For those of you who haven't seen the part 1 and part 2 video releases on this subject, or have a desire to gain protective knowledge and insight into the "dark art" of card cheating, then you landed on the right page!

WHY THIS BLOG SHOULD BE IMPORTANT TO YOU...THE POKER PLAYER

Poker players arm themselves with lot's of knowledge dedicated to improving their game. From GTO principles, to books, charts, online courses and solvers. But historically, poker "protection" knowledge has been a highly guarded secret that has NOT been accessible to poker players and quite frankly is rarely accessible to game runners and poker room managers. Being in this industry my entire life and seeing the amount of cheating that happens in poker on every level...I'm convinced you can be the best player at the table, but if you don't have a developed understanding of game protection principles, all the solvers in the world won't help you "beat the cheat." However, the information in this blog, as well as the videos that accompany it are designed to do just that. And while protection consultation is very expensive, you will never pay a dime as I am making this content free to anyone who wants it.

Historically this information was only made available to industry insiders and even then, such

protection knowledge has been skewed more towards casino table games and slot machines. Understandably so, given the fact that players play each other in poker and the house only collects a rake (where legal).

As often as I can, I will be posting new articles to compliment my youtube videos on this fascinating and elusive subject. Expect this blog to cover breaking stories in the world of poker cheating as well as legendary tales of its trade accompanied by expert insight into explaining and understanding a variety of dark edges, card mechanics, and other forms of cheating - - - designed to add "protection" knowledge to your overall skillset at the poker table.

ree — A Cheating Device - The Poker Analyzer

Poker Cheating Exposed will also inform you about the the latest high tech cheating devices such as the Poker Analyzer seen here on the left which can scan the entire deck after a shuffle and then send a signal to the cheat revealing the victims hands. I'll reveal

how cheaters can compromise a professional shuffle machine and rig it to either convey the top 3 best hands at the table or to not shuffle the cards at all and instead be used to ring in a cold deck. Most importantly I will show you ways to avoid being cheated by these devices and provide ways to detect whether or not one is being used against you. And if that's not enough I'll be revealing a variety of online poker scams and other forms of corruption that attempt to penetrate the modern poker game we all know and love.

THE TEXAS POKER CHEATS EXPOSED SUMMARY

a few weeks ago , professional poker player Shaun Deeb reposted a couple of videos on X sent to him by players featuring dealers caught in the act of cheating from two different Texas card rooms. These videos went viral on X and inspired me to produce a Part 1 and 2 video exposing these cheating methods, along with a final "must see" part 3 video to the series that shares some shocking new discoveries.

ree — Stacking The Deck at Legends Poker Room

ree — Cutting from a break at Elite Social

After taking the time to break these videos down for the poker

community, I did a deeper dive and what I found was, well.... not good!

The two card rooms in question were Legends Poker Room and the Elite Social Club, both located in Houston, Texas.

As my videos continued getting views the comments came flooding in. I was was taken aback with the overwhelmingly positive reception by YOU, the poker community. Its amazing how appreciative everyone has been to receive an explanation for the cheating tactics in question, along with some tools to help protect yourself from dealers like these in the future.

A Deeper Dive into the root of the problem happening at Legends and Elite Social Club in Houston, Texas...

After this story broke and pokernews.com published an article about my expose videos, I was contacted by a Texas insider (who wishes not to be named) with some interesting information. First off, he told me the owners of both card rooms in question were former partners...and claimed both have a very shady past.

While I can't reveal the name of my source, I can tell you he is very tapped in to the local Houston politics surrounding poker. He assured me that poker has a bright future in Houston, Texas, but that future may very well NOT include the two card rooms in question. My source told me the owner of Legends, David La used to be partners with the owner of Elite Socia, VinhNyugen . He claims that both owners have a questionable past the least of which include non-ethical business practices all the way up to criminal allegation in the gaming/casino/poker business landscape and beyond. For instance, David La ran the Normandie Casino ultimately becoming CEO until the California Gaming commission REVOKED his gaming license for money laundering. My source in Texas tells me La's shady past is about to catch up with him and that hiring mechanics is just one item in a "laundry" list of other offenses that included everything from money laundering to dhuman traffiing/prostitution .

Now I'm not one to get hung up on people's past. I prefer to judge a business by how it is currently being operated before ever diving into the muck in an attempt to sling unnecessary dirt.

Having said that, when the business is hosting games that lead to player videos shot at the table clearly demonstrating cheating (as both the video from Legends and Elite did in my professional opinion) then maybe its time to start looking to the top of the food chain for some answers. The dealer at Legends made the most ballsy, unprofessional "Nobody's watching" attempt at cheating I've ever seen. His horrific push through shuffle resembled that of a 13 year old magician posting a practice session on youtube. And his stacking was even more offensive! (Which I demonstrate in my videos.). I never thought I would see such amateur hour cheating happen in a professionally ran card room. And the dealer from the Elite Social footage should win the award for best flashing of the cards during a stacking shuffle so high that the dude in the seven seat was able to read the face value and suit of the cards during the controlled riffle! After speaking to my source, I started to get the feeling these two incidents go way deeper than just a one-off situation. Could this be happening because management is either turning their heads the other way or even worse, could they be knowingly planting mechanics to deal in their card rooms? We can only hope that's not the case and these two cheaters caught on tape will be an anomaly. But for anyone questioning how these clubs are being run, now might be a good time for some "HOPE"

Meet the Houston Organized Poker Enthusiasts, aka "HOPE!"

These guys do not have anything nice to say about David La, owner of Legends Poker Room which is evident by the main pic on the homepage of their website:

While I can't tell you much about the HOPE organization (I tried calling their tip-line but it has been disconnected) , what I can tell you with the utmost certainty is... These guys HATE David La with an unbridled passion!

In fact, their entire website seems to be solely dedicated to exposing La and Legends as a fraudster criminal enterprise. According to HOPE David La was kicked out of Los Angeles from fraudulent business practices at the Hustler owned Lady Luck Casino in Normandie and then fled from LA straight to Texas under a "cloud of corruption." If you want all those dirty details provided by the HOPE organization, feel free to visit their site by clicking on one of the pics above.

These are important tips you won't want to miss.

I would like to thank @shaundeeb and the players who shared videos with him for bringing them to light. I also want to thank @Joeingram1 for always being a good bouncing board in terms of content creation. And last but not least a big thanks to Jon Sofen @jonpokerwriter and @PokerNews for featuring my initial video and helping me bring this knowledge to the mainstream poker world.