91–100 of 288 posts
Doesn’t sound that profitable to me. $7m is a lot of money. But not that much after building all of that custom tech, setting up a dedicated space, training and paying a whole bunch of people to run these games. Then whatever’s left over gets split between multiple crime families? Seems like a lot of work.
But yeah they surely make much more selling fentanyl.
This is silly. People used to play poker, and cheat, and the whole thing was illegal. Now, people play poker, and cheat, and they want the government to police their poker games and make sure they're fair. Complete waste of resources.
> 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 mon…
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?
Seems like Trump is going after his old enemies in New York. Also, they spelled "Bonnano" wrong in that article. It is Bonanno. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonanno_crime_family Bon Anno = Good Year
https://www.gao.gov/products/t-osi-88-7
https://www.amny.com/news/the-mob-is-making-a-comeback-in-co...
And...
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/donald-trump-crimin...
"One of the key figures involved in these deals has been the Russian-born, mob-linked businessman Felix Sater, who plead guilty to racketeering for his role in a $40 million stock fraud scheme involving the Genovese and Bonanno crime families49 and was convicted of stabbing a man in the face with a broken margarita glass in New York."
"Despite their long association, Trump has repeatedly denied knowing about Sater’s criminal past, notwithstanding the fact that Sater widely represented himself as a Trump associate in business deals."
This is probably a very HN comment, but I cannot imagine why people actually like gambling and poker: - high likelihood you lose money - the point of the game is to lie to friends and strangers - you're stuck sitting at a table and following rules for hours - the only victory condition is that you take money from other people
The amount of money involved is small compared to the incomes of those playing, where most players have the expectation that they won't get money back and that is fine for the enjoyment they get out of the game, and the pot isn't big enough to be worth cheating about. Everyone puts in the same amount of money. You play texas hold 'em no limit with escalating blinds starting with a pretty big stack of chips, just like a real tournament. When people are out, they can't buy back in. You play until everyone is out, and the Top N players get some money back.
Lots of fun games involve lying, but you can play all night long and never tell a single lie and still win. Your only necessary verbs in a game of poker are "Call, raise, fold". Everything else is optional. If you bet big on a hand, you aren't saying anything about what is in your hand, lie or not. All the interpretation of what that means is in your opponents head. Lots of very good poker players don't talk about the hands at all.
My family quite commonly plays Texas Hold 'em for _no money at all_, everyone just gets a stack of chips.
This is probably a very HN comment, but I cannot imagine why people actually like gambling and poker: - high likelihood you lose money - the point of the game is to lie to friends and strangers - you're stuck sitting at a table and following rules for hours - the only victory condition is that you take money from other people
This is probably a very HN comment, but I cannot imagine why people actually like gambling and poker: - high likelihood you lose money - the point of the game is to lie to friends and strangers - you're stuck sitting at a table and following rules for hours - the only victory condition is that you take money from other people
Would you pay for an experience somewhere and then call it a loss because your bank balance is now lower?
It’s not lying, it’s a game and everyone knows the rules.
Cant the victory condition be… having fun? Why so transactional
This is probably a very HN comment, but I cannot imagine why people actually like gambling and poker: - high likelihood you lose money - the point of the game is to lie to friends and strangers - you're stuck sitting at a table and following rules for hours - the only victory condition is that you take money from other people
There's something very satisfying about making thousands of decisions that have a positive expected value and seeing the math win throughout the variance, resulting in a proven edge.
Like anything in life, it's fun to get good at something and at some point it's beyond the math and theory, it feels like the cards become transparent at times, you just have a gut feeling that this hand, this person is trying to bluff. It can be based on what you know about them or just how fast they clicked or their bet size, but this guy wants you to fold so you'll call with almost nothing and still win.
But overall as a profession fuck poker, you don't contribute anything to the world.
This scheme doesn’t really make sense. Once you’ve convinced a wealthy person to play at your underground poker table, you’ve already won - just play better poker than them, ultra wealthy fish don’t have time to learn to play perfect poker and you do. Trying to extract slightly more money per hand via x ray tables etc kills the golden goose and doesn’t even necessarily increase total winnings, since it makes you win…
I read a theory that the poker winnings were not the scam. The scam was that the criminal element would HELP the NBA players cheat at poker, and then blackmail them with that info to change the outcomes of NBA games, which they were betting on, from which they could derive greater scale of winnings.
This scheme doesn’t really make sense. Once you’ve convinced a wealthy person to play at your underground poker table, you’ve already won - just play better poker than them, ultra wealthy fish don’t have time to learn to play perfect poker and you do. Trying to extract slightly more money per hand via x ray tables etc kills the golden goose and doesn’t even necessarily increase total winnings, since it makes you win…
I read a theory that the poker winnings were not the scam. The scam was that the criminal element would HELP the NBA players cheat at poker, and then blackmail them with that info to change the outcomes of NBA games, which they were betting on, from which they could derive greater scale of winnings.