Don’t Worry, You Can Still Play Poker in Midtown

Photo: Kucher Serhii / Shutterstock

Organizers of illegal midtown poker rings don’t sound terribly bothered by the prospect of raids by the NYPD, telling DNAinfo they plan to keep doing what they do because, as one said, “the reward is greater than the risk.” They’ve already been raided, and the city is suing them to get them to stop, but these consequences don’t intimidate in the face of thousands of dollars in cash. “If I get arrested, it’s not going to bother me because they’ll just charge me with promotion of gambling and it will be charged as a misdemeanor,” one organizer said. Another characterized the games as “a very mouth to mouth, underground operation,” but they don’t seem to be all that worried about staying underground, seeing as DNAinfo published the website that lets people sign up for games.

Don’t Worry, You Can Still Play Poker in Midtown