By Alexis Russell

09/06/2008

Poker players in Colorado have a number of options for playing the game in licensed establishments unlike unlucky players in some other states.  But Larry Lee Wittman seemed to feel it needed another card room.  It’s just too bad the Colorado Bureau of Investigations didn’t feel the same way about his illegal gambling operation.

            The recent raid that busted up what had come to been known as Larry’s All In Poker Club is another reminder that poker has a fine line of legality.  Unlike the shake ups that occurred in South Carolina over the last year, Wittman was clearly not in the right as far as Colorado gambling laws go.  Over the course of nearly 4 years the CBI had been monitoring Wittman’s operation and finally decided to make their move last week.

            The first stirrings of Wittman’s poker room started after the card room was held up by gunmen who got away with thousands in cash in October of 2004.  Since then the Colorado Bureau of Investigation has been building their case through interviews, complaints they received, direct questioning of Wittman and a wire-tapped informant actually getting inside and taking part in the card room activities.  What they found had the cards really stacked against Wittman.

            Wittman’s card room violated a number of gambling laws for illegal establishments.  Prior to the raid Wittman himself admitted to CBI agent Timothy Martinez that he took what was considered a rake and he didn’t associate with any of the players outside of his card room, both facts of which fall into the illegal gambling category. 

            This came after the wired informant had had to pay a $5 an hour charge for playing at the card room/house.  It can only be guessed that Wittman already knew he had dug himself a hole so kept digging it deeper also telling Martinez that he put on dice games, loaned players money and paid bills with the poker room proceeds.  Luckily for Wittman Colorado isn’t nearly as harsh as other states and he got away with just a misdemeanor.

            However, the misdemeanor didn’t slow down Wittman’s poker room one bit.  After learning from another informant that Wittman was still opening the home to money players and also, as the informant witnessed, not allowing players to leave until they’ve paid their $5 an hour rake, the CBI decided they needed to take more drastic action.  With warrant in hand last week they raided the poker room handing out more citations to players and putting Wittman in the hot seat again.

            We’ll have to wait and see how it plays out in court.