Something to Think about when buying chips (legal aspect)

[Jezebel]

In our area we have had two games busted by the cops in the last couple of months. Both games were pretty big and ran games 4 or 5 nights a week. One thing that came out of the mess was that the cops determined how big the game was, and thus how seriously to charge the offenders, by the total money present in chips. Apparently this is only possible if you have the denominations marked on the chips. One of the clubs had well over 1 mil in marked chips because the cops included all of the tourney chips as well. Because the value was this high they decided to charge the owner to the max the law allowed.

The other club which was just as big did not have marked chips, they were only color coded. They probably had just as many chips, but the cops couldn't really prove how much money was in play. THis owner got off with misdemeanor gambling charge.

Just something to think about.

Unforntuanely, I'm a bit too ignorant to be able to answer any legal questions some of you may have. I only speak from experience.

[Bodhi]

Thank you once again big brother. The police were doing their jobs, but sometimes I hate the state. Ever hear this one? "In heaven you may be joyful, but you can't have a rip roaring good time!" /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[smoore]

wow, that's pretty crappy of the cops. Not that this thing doesn't have precedent, any time they bust a pot grower they always use "street value" to determine how to charge the guy. Basically, they take the total weight of all the plant matter... flowers, leaves, stalks, even the dirt clinging to the roots and then break it down into the smallest "street" quantity. Multiply by the most expensive price and they get a hugely inflated "street value" so they can bust the poor sod for more. I even saw one case where they accused the guy of making moonshine in his homebrew BEER system. He did not even have a still. I've had a couple stills and just by looking at the video clip of his "distillery" you could tell it's for beer and not spirits. I love my country but I fear my government.

Exellent post, I hope the owner of the club with denoms on the chips can at least beat the tournament chips, that's BS.

[AgentJack]

I have no problem with them busting people that grow and sell drugs.

I also have a questions about these home games. Where they raking the games?

Also I wonder if you could put denomations on your chips but not have a dollar sign on them. So instead of $25 it would just say 25. This way it could be 25 cents, 25 bags of flour, etc.

[smoore]

AgentJack! Are you the guy who busted up my last still?!

[warewulf]

What crappy state are you in? Sounds like a religious state or something. Another soulution to the tourney chips is to do what some casinos do: put "NO CASH VALUE" on them.

I think the cops were just pissed because they weren't invited to the game. Maybe the donut store went out of business and they were bored.