Little Rock, Ark.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - A man who operated a poker parlor that he claimed was legal has been sentenced to three years probation for running a prohibited gambling operation.

Logan Wight Dungan operated a National Poker Challenge franchise, which was raided in November 2007 that followed an undercover investigation by police. Five people were arrested after the initial raid but the 38-year-old Dungan was the only person charged.
Dungan entered a no contest plea on Monday to a charge of keeping a gambling house. In addition to probation, prosecutors say the judge fined him $300 and ordered him to forfeit his poker tables and related equipment.

The business operated at the Ashley Square shopping center in Little Rock.

At the time of the raid, company president Michael White said the games were legal and cited a 2005 attorney general's opinion. In a statement on the company Web site, White complained that prosecutors didn't know enough about how his games worked to judge them illegal.
After the raid, Prosecutor Larry Jegley said the state constitution would have to be changed for the poker games to become legal. "You can't just talk circles around the issue and make it legal," Jegley said at the time.
The site said players did not pay to play poker, but could pay a $100 monthly fee to have their statistics tracked.

White's Web site has since been taken down.

Dungan's plea was made three months after three Houston residents accused of participating in an illegal gambling operation on Base Line Road pleaded guilty to gambling charges. The raid on National Poker was conducted within a day of the raid at The Game Room where manager Timmy Le, 28, Francisco Javier "Paco" Moreno, 21, and Ngoc "Nancy" My Pho, 23, were arrested. At that operation, Little Rock police said they seized 70 electronic gambling machines and more than $14,000.
Deputy Prosecutor Troy Braswell says Le pleaded guilty to keeping a gambling house and a misdemeanor charge of possession of a gambling device in exchange for three years on unsupervised probation and the agreement to forfeit the money and games seized by police.
The felony gambling house charges against Moreno and Pho were dropped with their guilty pleas to a misdemeanor count of illegally possessing a gambling device, and each was fined $300.
Braswell said the seized equipment will either be auctioned by police or used for training or undercover work.