Busted (Cont’d)
All of a sudden the monitors went black, the dealers sprinted from their seats in the box, trying to look like normal patrons, and the NYPD Vice Squad busted into the room screaming “Everybody! Hands up! Hands over your heads!”
We all froze, hands high in the air, nobody moving a muscle.
“Anybody have any weapons on them???”
Silence.
The cops searched the whole apartment, presumably for money, drugs, people, whatever they could find. Then, with the 20 of us still sitting there, hands over our heads, they took us into the back room one by one.
When it was my turn to go the officer had me put my hands against the wall while he patted me down and emptied my pockets. Then a barrage of questions: name, address, logistics about the game etc etc. Thankfully I had only been here a couple times before so I could truthfully answer “I don’t know.”
The cop explained to me that they were not here for the players, they were only here to get the people running the games. They didn’t even take the $300 cash he found while patting me down!
Then something truly inexplicable happened. The cop asked me if I ever play in Atlantic City. I told him I do, and even sometimes up in Foxwoods. He seemed to be hanging on to my every word, so I told him about a trip I had planned to go to Vegas soon for the 2009 World Series of Poker, and he got really excited. Started asking me all sorts of questions about Vegas and the WSOP ad generally just forgot about why we were in this back room together.
Finally the door opened and he came out of his reverie. It was time for me to go back out to the general populous.
I sat back down in the main room, this time with my hands down, and two hours after seeing the Vice Squad sprint up the stairs I was free to wander back out on to the streets… Minus the $1,000 I left on the table.
