In Response to Ed Miller

I tried to post this on Ed Miller's site in response to his post entitled "The Madness of Illegal Poker", but there seems to be some sort of comment moderation over there, so I'm not sure if it will ever show up. Anyway I think it's worth repeating here.

Ed's basic premise is that the only thing the City's current enforcement of the law -- raiding the clubs and giving proprietors and dealers a slap on the wrist, but nothing more serious -- does is waste everyone’s time. It is annoying, it doesn't actually change anything (because clubs open back up again in a matter of weeks), and it creates a very dangerous environment for club management, players, and even those who live and work in the vicinity of the card clubs because the clubs have no incentive to make significant investments in security due to the omnipresent threat of a raid.

My response is this:

Unfortunately, NYC is in a bit of a bind on this one. On the one hand, the PR nightmare from sending a 55yo math professor to Attica for 5 years for organizing a poker game is something that no politician or police brass ever wants to deal with. On the other hand, the state constitution makes all forms of gambling illegal except for certain carve-outs (pari-mutuel horse wagering, certain lotteries, and the like), so getting the law changed in NY pretty much requires a constitutional amendment. It's an ugly process that requires a super-majority of the New York state legislature to approve the amendment in two consecutive sessions (i.e. years). It's hard to convince legislators from the large rural swatches of upstate New York, who tend to run on very traditional, conservative platforms, to support such an amendment.

Right now, one thing the city has going for it is that the tabloids like to sensationalize the stories and portray poker clubs as "sordid gambling dens" rather than as places were respectable people go to socialize and engage in a respectable social activity. So the NYPD waits until they have enough complaints about a location, raids it, make a couple of arrests, and mugs for the press cameras. Meanwhile, the "offenders" are quietly processed through the Tombs, given ACDs (adjournment in contemplation of dismissal, assuming that they "stay clean" for a determinate length of time) and sent on their way.

I don't see how there's a better way out of this situation for the city. It is political suicide to actually prosecute these people as criminals, but if enough of the ancillary businesses around the poker club complain about increased foot traffic, disruptions in the building, noise, etc., there's little that the NYPD can do to ignore the reality. Meanwhile, the games conversely become more dangerous for some of the reasons Ed cited in his post.

I've been trying to think of a better way out of this situation for quite a while, and nothing has leapt out at me.