The two California card rooms that were raided in a nationwide sports book bust begged to reopen last week.
The shuttered card rooms were seeking permission to reopen. However, the California Attorney General’s office says that they will not be permitted to do that until they agree to stop paying any current partners or shareholders.
They will also have to hire a general manager independent of the corporations that own them.
Dan Horn, a spokesman for Seven Mile Casino issued a statement: “Especially during this holiday season, our number one priority right now is to get the card room reopened so that our 300 plus employees can get back to work and providing for their families.”
Palomar Card Club has expressed similar concerns for its 150 employees.
Officials identified a shadowy alleged underworld figure known as “Fat Dave” Stroj as the chief targets the raid two weeks ago.
Hundred of state and federal law enforcement officers from the FBI, IRS, Homeland Security, San Diego Sheriff’s Office and the California Department of Justice and Gambling Control Division descended on the Seven Mile Casino in Chula Vista and the Palomar Card Room in San Diego at an operation aimed and dismembering illegal gambling operations that stretch from Canada to Mexico and have involved money laundering of $10 million.
The California Bureau of Gambling Control ordered the card room closed immediately. The clubs and their owners are among 25 people indicted by a federal grand jury, although at the top of the list was “Fat Dave.”
Besides San Diego, arrests were made in Arizona, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Iowa.
Federal prosecutors allege that for two years, and perhaps longer that a bookmaking operation operated offshore sports betting and other illegal gaming sites from mansions in one of San Diego’s wealthiest neighborhoods, Rancho Santa Fe.
Frequently high stakes poker and blackjack games were held in opulent mansions with professional card dealers, prostitutes and high paid chefs.
The San Diego U.S. Attorney’s office alleges that Stroj “used financiers, a business manager, sub-agents, money runners, money couriers and debt collectors” in an operation where millions of dollars were processed every month. He reportedly had hundreds of clients and operated in a dozen cities in the U.S., Mexico and Canada. U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy called the Stroj operation “massive.”
Stroj was not arrested during the raids but later surrendered himself to federal authorities.
Stroj was jailed and denied bail after prosecutors successfully argued that he was a flight risk. He has three prior convictions for bookmaking and is allegedly connected to the Philadelphia mafia. He pleaded “not guilty” to the charges.
When he moved to San Diego Stroj in 2008 maintained his connections to the Philadelphia underworld. Unfortunately for Stroj he was wiretapped, and was heard to say, “Palomar is the best way I can wash the money. I don’t have to report it. I just deposit it at the Palomar and there’s no problems for me.”
