RAISING THE STAKES
After poker-babe bust, illegal high-end games return
IT’S eight o’clock on a Thursday night in New York City. Inside a Midtown doorman apartment building, eight men are gathered around a table playing a game of Pot Limit Omaha with hundreds of thousands of dollars at stake. A wellheeled real estate investor, still wearing his work outfit of a sports jacket and button-down shirt, pushes his entire stack of yellow and purple chips — $50,000 worth — to the center of the table. Seconds later, his opponent unveils a winning hand, and the investor loses as much money in minutes as many people earn in a year.
He looks up and shouts one word: “Reload!”
This is the new version of “Molly’s game” — the notorious poker bashes hosted by Molly Bloom from 2008 to 2011 in highend hotel rooms in NYC and LA, attracting the likes of Tobey Maguire and Alex Rodriguez, as well as Wall Street financiers and Russian mobsters. A one-time Olympic-hopeful skier, Bloom, and her nosebleed-stakes game — which generated multiple pots of $200,000 over the course of a single night — were eventually busted by the FBI. Bloom got one year probation for participating in organized crime enterprises engaged in gambling and money laundering, but she still came out on top: Her 2014 memoir, “Molly’s Game,” is now a movie starring Jessica Chastain and in NYC theaters Sunday.
Meanwhile, unlicensed forprofit gambling operations remain illegal in New York State, but that doesn’t stop underground entrepreneurs from turning city apartments into lucrative poker dens. “New York has got dozens of games,” professional poker player Mickey Appleman told The Post. Wins and losses, the 72-year-old New Jersey resident said, “range from pennies to thousands of dollars per hand.”
The aforementioned Midtown game “stretches back to an affiliate of Molly’s,” according to a player. “Before Molly got busted, this game, in various incarnations, ran alongside hers. It’s changed hands several times and the stakes have gone up and down, but it’s rooted in Molly’s world. After she was arrested, there was a brief cooling period. But, within months, the games were back. They never really went away.”
One feature that remains from the days of Molly is that you’ll find no cash on the table. In the interest of avoiding police busts and robberies, the game is played on credit and settled up in the days following, via the host.
The scene is lavish. Often a chef is on hand to cook T-bone steaks or lobster. A bartender pours top-shelf booze, sexy massage girls provide shoulder rubs and pipefuls of pot are on offer. Regulars at the game, which takes place a couple of nights a week, include a retired NBA star, Wall Street titans, lawyers, real estate investors and a smattering of poker pros.
Multiple players complained to The Post that the $40,000 or so per night earned by the owner of the game (achieved by “raking” a commission out of each pot) is too high. “It makes it really hard to earn a profit,” said one professional poker player who dropped out of the game for that reason.
According to a regular, however, that hefty return is not completely unwarranted: “Whoever owns the game takes a serious [financial] risk. He is responsible for collecting money from losers and paying off the winners.”
So what happens when losers renege? Amazingly, said the player, “nothing.” Gone are the days when deadbeats got roughed up by the mob. “Having somebody beaten up can land you in jail and ruin your game. It’s easier to fade the loss.” There’s also a block in the East 30s that is home to three wellknown medium-stakes games held in separate buildings. “A good player can win $10,000 there,” said a New Jersey school teacher who counts himself among the winners.
At some of those games, however, the risks go beyond raids and robberies. One poker participant recounted a high-tech cheating ploy in which the dealer and a planted player collaborated. The dealer slipped in a deck of cards implanted with unnoticeable Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) computer chips. The cards silently transmitted their order to a computer that was able to figure out who at the table would be dealt the winning hand; the computer then transmitted that intel to the player via an earpiece. “If it was [him],” said the game’s participant, “he would try to get in all his chips.”
The scam came to light after hidden sensors were discovered under the table. The guys behind it were found out, but had already split and were, allegedly, never punished.
Then there are the elaborate games — held at Connecticut mansions, posh city hotels and members-only spots such as a private cigar club on the East Side — put on by hedge-funders for hedge-funders. Players handle the deal, and no one takes a rake, making it legal. According to Aaron Brown, formerly a risk manager at AQR Capital Management and author of 2006’s “The Poker Face of Wall Street,” those games can include “hands where people go all in for $100,000. They show no emotions over losing.”
He added that “Settling up is done by check or electronic transfer” — including Bitcoin.
Appleman, for one, doesn’t even think another “Molly’s Game”-style bust would slow things down: “When people want to be in action, they find action.”