Agents spend $ 1K in probe of poker club !

Tucson, Arizona

Undercover agents posed as poker players on at least six occasions over a three-month span during their investigation into a North Side card room, spending more than $1,000 on poker in the process, the state's investigative report shows.
Arizona Department of Gaming agents and Tucson police executed a search warrant Tuesday on Club Royale, 2665 N. Campbell Ave., as well as at the residences of club owners Donna and Johnny Ray Rogers.
The searches were conducted five days after Club Royale closed its doors as part of an agreement with the Pascua Yaqui Tribe to settle a civil lawsuit filed by the tribe.
The tribe, which operates two of the Tucson area's four casinos, sued Club Royale on Aug. 19, claiming the poker room was violating state gambling laws and that it held a competitive advantage over Indian casinos because it didn't have to abide by a gaming compact.
Indian casinos are regulated by the Arizona-Tribal State Gaming Compact, which was approved in 1993 and renewed by voters in 2003.
The timing of the warrants was not related to the club's closure, said Seena Simon, a spokeswoman for the Department of Gaming.
"That's when we were ready to go," Simon said. "We would have asked for the search warrants even if the club was open."
The investigative report, which the Gaming Department has posted on its Web site along with surveillance video and photos taken during the investigation, says agents began infiltrating Club Royale in late July and returned on several occasions in an attempt to see if the club was violating state laws on gambling.
During their investigation, agents observed the club's evolution into a hot spot for action-seeking poker players, the report states.
"The size of the poker games held in the Club Royale have grown so much that this establishment is now a full-fledged poker room and not a social club," the report stated in an entry related to an Aug. 28 poker game that involved several players placing "bundles of hundred-dollar bills into the pot."
The report says agents sat in on poker games and struck up conversations with players, dealers and other card-room staffers, learning that word was spreading in the Tucson area that Club Royale had more live "action" than poker rooms at Casino del Sol or the Desert Diamond Casino.
Agents used more than $1,000 in "undercover funds" to buy poker chips and memberships to the club. One agent won $155 in a poker game played on Oct. 16.
Agents observed card-room dealers collecting a $3 fee from a different player before each hand, which would then be placed by the dealer into a metal container on the floor next to the dealer's leg, the report states.
This fee resulted in $123 in revenue collected during an hour-long period on July 30, the report states. That amount swelled to an estimated $555 being taken in per hour on Aug. 20, when the report states five active poker games were each dealing 33 to 37 hands per hour.
Charging players a fee to play makes the game illegal because the house receives a direct profit from the games, says a news release issued Tuesday by the Arizona Department of Gaming.
In addition to posing as poker players, gambling agents set up surveillance outside of the club, and also tailed the Rogerses and other card-room staff members in an effort to gather information on where the owners were making financial transactions related to the club.
An account with Wells Fargo, set up for Club Royale, had deposits totaling $44,506 between Aug. 1 and Oct. 9, according to the report.
The report also states that agents routinely collected trash from a Dumpster behind the card room, and also arranged with local Waste Management officials to inspect trash collected from the Rogerses' residences.
The investigation has been turned over to the Pima County Attorney's Office for review, but it could be several months before a decision is made on whether charges will be filed, said David Berkman, the county's chief criminal deputy attorney.
Findings from the search warrants have yet to be returned and forwarded to the county, Berkman said.
Donna Rogers declined to comment on the investigation, and calls made Friday to her and Johnny Ray Rogers' lawyer, Stephen Weiss, were not immediately returned.