Video Shows Poker Dealer Take Deck to Bathroom Before False-Dealing Cooler
PokerNews has obtained additional footage showing a Houston poker dealer apparently false-dealing more times than first reported earlier this week.
The dealer, known in local circles as "Moe," was recently captured on film pretending to shuffle the deck, before dealing a player he presumably conspired with a winning cooler. As it turns out, it wasn't a one-time incident. An anonymous source sent us separate surveillance videos from earlier in February at The River Poker Club, a small card room in Spring, Texas, a town near Houston.
It should be noted that the game, we are told, was a private game that was hosted at the poker club, but not by the poker club. The dealer is not employed by the poker room, and the game didn't even use the River Poker Club's chips. But the video you're about to witness should make poker players cautious about entering certain private games, especially in Houston.
Disturbing Video at Texas Poker Room
An anonymous source shared with us multiple videos from a private poker game in February, and we'll share with our audience the main video that shows Moe and a player meeting in the bathroom before Moe took his seat in the dealer chair.
The four-minute video, recorded on Feb. 8, began with Moe having a conversation outside the card room with local player Marcos Estrada. The two then entered the building and Moe took a seat at the open table next to the private game. He then grabbed a deck of cards and walked into the hall where he again met with Estrada. They then entered the bathroom together.
Both individuals left the bathroom, and Estrada jumped back in the game, while Moe moved into the dealer's seat. Moe, like he did in the previous brief video released on social media in a separate game, appeared to false-shuffle the deck, ensuring all cards never switched positions, the video shows. He then dealt Estrada a winning cooler for a double-up for thousands of dollars. The exact pot size is unknown.
Our anonymous source claims that Estrada plays for many hours, perhaps legitimately, and waits for the other players to become drunk and tired, and that is when he allegedly conspires with Moe to rig the deck so he can get all the chips. Buy-ins for these no-limit hold'em games can get as high as $20,000.
Houston has a booming poker industry, with numerous legal poker clubs in operation, such as Champions Club and Texas Card House. But the city still has a huge private game scene, and not all of it is on the up and up.
