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If you haven’t read it already, the DailyBeast.com presented an excellent account from a former waitress as to the inner workings of New York’s notorious underground poker rooms.
Underground poker rooms are venues not operating in accordance with state gaming laws that typically do not profit from the actual poker games but rather blackjack or craps played on the side.
Some of these underground clubs have been raided, shut down, then open back up the next day.
Underground high stakes poker games have gained notoriety in recent months with the revelations that “Spiderman” actor Toby Maguire participated in Hollywood games organized by a ponzi schemer. Maguire was also named in a complaint filed by investors screwed over by said scammer. Other big actors were mentioned as having played in games with Maguire though they were not specifically named in the complaint.
New York Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez has repeatedly denied attending the Hollywood underground high stakes poker games despite being implicated by other attendees.
While still appearing on “The Sopranos”, Robert Iler, who portrayed A.J. Soprano, was present at the Ace Club New York underground poker club back in October of 2005.
The celebs and others who take part in these games often do so under a different persona, as the former waitress notes.
“I ran into a former boss of mine from a nightclub I had bartended in,” she relayed to the Daily Beast. “I had never seen him out of a suit before and used to be terrified of him, but here he was with sour cream on his t-shirt slinking out after losing thousands of dollars on a Sunday afternoon.”
Some excerpts from the DailyBeast piece:
Once I got hired, my friend told me not to wear what I would normally wear to bartend—in other words, tone down the cleavage. Other rooms required girls to wear lingerie or bikinis, but this room had a lot of serious players who didn’t want any distractions. It was the opposite of the strip club.
My job consisted mostly of sitting quietly and watching them play Texas Hold ‘Em poker—a game that I didn’t understand. Occasionally one of them would ask me to fetch him a beer and tip me in poker chips. I was basically to be a quiet, subservient Rent-a-Housewife.
The dealer also explained to me that the players’ positioning at the poker table was very indicative of their skills and status. The player sitting directly next to the dealer on the right side was responsible for the lead off. He was a skilled player who was effectively an employee of the house and raised the stakes in order to keep the other players in the game … but they didn’t know that.
I had taken a shiatsu class my freshman year in college (I guess I did learn something useful at NYU) and put my skills to work. After about 20 minutes, he announced to the room that I had the greatest massage skills of any poker waitress to date. A star was born. I was booked solid for the rest of the evening in 15 and 20-minute increments. My hands started to hurt, but I was surprised how few lascivious remarks were directed my way during all of this. The conversation at the table consisted of three things: 1) Poker, 2) Sports, and 3) Steak, particularly the best steakhouses in the city and who specialized in each cut of meat.
- Patrick Flanagan, Gambling911.com
