I've heard numerous second- and third- hand stories about the robbery of the tournament in Austin recently. The Austin-American Statesman finally published a story on it.

After pistol-whipping some players and ordering the men and women to give up their wallets and strip, the robbers ransacked a room in the clubhouse, said Reynolds, who was not injured but lost $60 to the robbers. At the last minute, the game's organizer had reduced the amount players had to bring from $100 per 150 tournament chips to $25 for the same number of chips to attract more players. Twenty to 25 people attended.

The robbers stole the $1,000 prize money and about $1,000 more from the victims, Rodriguez said.

Link (thanks, Rob!)

The main tidbit I've heard that wasn't covered in the story was that the first thing the thieves apparently did was to walk up to each table and pistol-whip the biggest or strongest looking guy at each table. I've heard a couple other things, but nothing substantiated enough to write about here.

The main takeaway from this whole thing is that robbing home poker games simply is not worth it; poker games generate the image of a lot of cash in play, but the reality is that the average low or mid buyin home game doesn't really have all that money in play. So note to thieves: if you're going to coordinate a four-person armed robbery, please give strong consideration to alternatives to poker games. There are much better targets out there.

If anyone has any other details about the incident, please post them here.

Someone mentioned that the radio mentioned a third robbery over the weekend. I had heard about the Wickersham robbery and the Arboretum game being robbed, any ideas on the third?

Posted by: Adam on November 15, 2004 12:38 PM

Hadn't heard about the arboretum game being robbed. Details on that one?

Editor's note: the Arboretum Game was not robbed, nor was this most recent robbery (12/10/2004) at the Arboretum Game. One of the things the robbed games have in common is that they have openly publicized their location and had pretty much an open-door policy as far as new players in the game, two things I don't really recommend as far as home games are concerned.

Posted by: Rob on November 15, 2004 12:55 PM

The Statesman article suggested that the players pool some money to hire a security guard however my understanding is that doing so would make the game illegal (just as hiring a paying a dealer makes a game illegal.) What do you have to say about this Jeremy?

Posted by: Rock on November 17, 2004 01:39 PM

Rock -- technically, any time you have someone receiving an "economic benefit" from a game, that makes the game illegal.

I've never heard of an unraked game being prosecuted because they hired staff like security out-of-pocket; however, that may be because in practice such an arrangement would involve heavy un-reimbursed expenses for the host.

The reality is that unless a game is raked or has some sort of cover, which make it clearly illegal, the host of the game has basically no incentive to pay a security guard (or a professional dealer).

The raked games I've heard of in Austin generally have no actual security. Even the Austin Poker Club when operational did not have dedicated security.

One of the ironic problems with having a security guard at a regular stakes-size game, raked or unraked, is that it probably has more of an unsettling effect on the players than having no visible security. And even if you have a security guard, if four armed guys show up and hold up the game, it would be one heck of a security guard who would resist them.

Security guards are probably not the solution to preventing theft; keeping a low profile, and carefully vetting new players and referrals, is a better solution -- but obviously not fail-safe either.

It's really unfortunate to see this happen in Austin, which in my time here has had a pretty clean record as far as outright robbery at poker games.

Typical single-table home games, at normal small stakes, shouldn't be too worried, since the potential take for thieves is so small, but larger tournaments probably have grounds for concern given this incident.

Posted by: jeremy on November 18, 2004 12:29 AM

Guys, there have been a string of robberies in Atlanta and Orlando as well. Be careful.

Posted by: xx666xx on January 19, 2005 02:03 PM

"The raked games I've heard of in Austin generally have no actual security. Even the Austin Poker Club when operational did not have dedicated security."

The austin poker club had contracted an off-duty APD officer to provide security. He was scheduled through the department, was in uniform and carring a weapon, and he was there every night. This was one of the "selling points" to prove it was a legit game. Although in their behalf, they really did think the club was legal.

Posted by: bob on March 5, 2005 02:05 PM

For some reason I Googled 'Austin Poker' and this website came up. Funny to see the mentioning of the Wickersham robbery. I was one of the ones (there were only 2 of us out of I'd say 25) who got pistol whipped. I was sitting at the table, with me hands turned palms up, looking down at the table, and here he cme outta no where acting like a hardass and he shoved the kid next to me basically out of his chair to get to me and then rocked me with the side of his pistol.

You say having security would deter nothign and make the players uneasy. That may be case for a friendly home game with hardly anything to worry about, but if you play in a fairly large game whee you dont know everyone, security would be nice.

4 black guys with 3 guns camein. That sounds scary, but 2 of them were pocket .22's and uncocked, and I am now convinced they didnt even have bullets. WHy else would you rough the people up and need to scare the shit out of them if you know you could kill them with the pull of a trigger?

And the thing was, they were just there to get the purse and run, but they got it and got really pissed when they realized only about a fourth of what they expected was in there. THAT is when they started really messing with people. So, they ran sacked the place b/c they firmly believed we were 'hiding' the cash from them. At one point, there was only one of those fuckers in the room with all 25 of us while the other 3 were looking for the money. Let's just say next time they will have to kill me or be killed.

If there was a security person there, it never would have happened in the first place. A hired security guard would have a shotgun and a pistol. Those 4 crack heads would not have come in there if they thought there was a chance they would die. These guys were big pussies, they even roughed up a guy who had a full back brace, who had just had back surgery and was completely harmless. And I think they were fuck-buddies from prison or something to do something as gay as make a bunch of men strip naked.

Anyways, I went by about a month later and all the tables and everything had been cleared out and cleaned up... but my blood was still splattered all over the wall where I was sitting when I got hit.

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