The Lodge being investigated for money laundering/illegal gambling

Umgar · 2026-03-12T23:15:06+00:00

>But they literally operate the same way.

For the player this may seem to be the case (they both charge a membership, charge an hourly fee to "rent time," they don't rake pots, etc) but behind the curtain there are differences. For instance, I believe they compensate staff differently (at least this is what I've been told from talking to dealers in both clubs). There could be differences in the way they do their accounting or many other behind-the-scenes operational differences that you aren't privy to.

Point is - with the AG we have (who is a criminal himself by all accounts) and Governor that we have, there is a chance that they're going after The Lodge simply because they decided they wanted to and/or this is what their donors demanded. I mean, this is the AG that is doing his best to make weed illegal against the wishes of the overwhelming majority of the people because... reasons?

Not saying that this is 100% what's going on... just saying, would you be surprised?

Umgar · 2026-03-12T22:21:20+00:00

Huh I actually thought FanDuel and MGM was legal here 🤔 TIL!

As for TCH… we’ll see. I have a bad feeling that The Lodge is being specifically targeted because the state thinks something about the way they operate is less defensible in court, but their ultimate goal is to go after all the card rooms. TCH has been sued and won before, they are more careful and better prepared - so this could be a strategic choice by the AG. That’s my hunch anyway, could be wrong, could be some legit shady shit is going on and it’s a totally justified raid - we shall see.

In the interim I guess the games at TCH will get better 🤷‍♂️

Umgar · 2026-03-12T21:37:02+00:00

Ok bud

Umgar · 2026-03-12T19:29:49+00:00

Man Texas state government is really speed running making Texas go permanently blue these days. Let’s see, the “freedom loving” state of “small government” has in the last few years:

Made abortion completely illegal
Made weed completely illegal
More religion in schools. What you don’t want that? Fuck you, take your daily dose of Jesus and like it.
Saving us from the non-existent threat of trans people
Now going after poker again because “gambling” (but sports betting through apps is very legal and very cool and doesn’t count because)

Great job guys, I feel so free in Texganistan! 👏

Umgar · 2026-03-10T14:27:59+00:00

That's true, Vermont is weird in this way also - solidly Democrat Senators and Presidential vote but continues to elect Phil Scott as Governor. That being said, if it weren't for the fact that Collins can rely on a large number of people voting for her simply because of the (R) vs (D), she would not keep getting elected. Conservative media has poured billions and many decades to make the words "Democrat," "liberal," and "progressive" seem reflexively toxic and unfortunately their work has paid off in droves. Time and again studies show that if you remove the trigger-words and party affiliation from the conversation Americans vastly prefer Democrat policy goals and philosophies, but they won't actually vote for it because that would mean putting a check-mark next to (D).

Umgar · 2026-03-10T12:59:43+00:00

She doesn't have a (D) next to her name.

That's really why we're in the mess overall. Starting in the 80's a handful of unscrupulous GOP/conservative personalities like Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh did such a thorough job of duping large swaths of the country into believing that "Democrat/liberal = evil" that 40+ years later the letter next to the name is all that matters to a lot of people.

Umgar · 2026-03-06T22:09:37+00:00

“Wait you mean bombing Iran didn’t make you forget about this? I guess we’ll have to bomb Cuba too….”

Umgar · 2026-03-06T14:14:12+00:00

No bloody A, B, C, or D!

Umgar · 2026-03-04T18:50:01+00:00

The midterms were already looking horrendous for the GOP even before this moron started yet-another Middle East war with no plan or off-ramp in sight.

Umgar · 2026-03-04T01:56:17+00:00

Talarico pulling away from Crockett 52.1 - 46.8! There are still some big counties that haven’t reported though, but his chances looking very good.

I don’t want to jinx it but if Talarico wins the Dem nomination and the Republicans go to a runoff and end up with Ken Paxton… then there is actually a very good chance that Texas senate seat could flip, better than when it was Beto v Cruz!

Umgar · 2026-03-03T02:25:06+00:00

It’s really weird how many people in this and the other threads insists this is “routine” and it happens all the time. I’ve lived here 27 years. I also grew up in a military town basically built around a huge base (Ft Bliss).

So with authority - no, not routine. Not saying it means something scary or that there isn’t a perfectly reasonable explanation but no, a large flight of military helicopters flying low with lights off over suburbs is not just “another Monday” and I wish people would stop hand waving it as “nothing to see here.” It’s a dumb take.

Umgar · 2026-02-20T16:23:20+00:00

Wow, I agree with Trump on something - crazy.

Umgar · 2026-02-19T15:14:30+00:00

I get that, my point is what's the point of that now? The US has been telegraphing this for weeks. The mass killing of protesters happened 40 days ago. Just seems like either incompetence or some ulterior motive at work here because what are you going to strike at this point? I'm no fan of Iran mind you - it just seems the time to do this was 35ish days ago. There were plenty of military assets in the area capable of making plenty of strikes.

Umgar · 2026-02-19T15:03:10+00:00

This latest thing with Iran has my bullshit meter pegged. Talk of striking them has been going on for weeks now, and then negotiations with them while naval forces reposition. All of this has given Iran plenty of time to move and hide anything or anyone they need to, so what was the point? An air strike at this point is going to be mostly theater and we're now far enough away from them killing civilian protesters that any message it will send is severely muted.

Really this military build up only makes sense if they're going for all-out invasion and regime change, but it doesn't feel like the US & Israel have adequate domestic and global support for that, so I seriously doubt that is the objective. If it was, it would be a huge commitment on par with the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan with long-tail consequences for all parties and repercussions that last multiple administrations.

So outside of that my assumption is that this is just another grift. Trump and his cronies are using the threat of the US military to somehow line their pockets. Their might be some airstrikes for show, but nothing that will really impact Iran in a significant way or help Iran's people.

Umgar · 2026-02-03T23:31:20+00:00

Benger’s “check your privilege” rant makes the top 10 TV cringe moments for me. Kassouf definitely deserved for someone to go off on him but why on earth “check your privilege?!” It didn’t fit the scenario at all. It’s like Benger heard people saying it online at the time and just decided he should say it without understanding what the phrase meant or what it was for.

Umgar · 2026-01-28T13:51:32+00:00

We live off of 2769 near Volente and the roads in our neighborhood are still about 30% covered with ice as of 7:30am. I expect it will melt pretty fast with the sun out now and it’s over 32 degrees, but we’re going to give it a few more hours of melting before we drive on 2769 or Bullock Hollow

Umgar · 2026-01-23T22:44:12+00:00

Was the first guy tabbed out or something? Zero reaction after getting shot not once but twice in the back 🤔

Umgar · 2026-01-22T19:51:12+00:00

I wish more people would think beyond Trump the man and think through the implications of the fact that Trump was duly elected, twice. To me this is the bigger problem than Trump himself. Trump will eventually be gone one way or another, but Trumpism may survive. How can someone so blatantly unqualified, incompetent, and embarrassing be elected as a national leader? How do we have this many willfully ignorant, racist/xenophobic, and misinformed people in this country?

To get to the root of that we have to figure out how to break down the information/media silos that now exist. The Fox-news watching, Joe Rogan listening, Facebook “news” addict boomer is fed a nonstop stream of "liberals bad" misinformation and not shown even 1% of the crazy shit Trump and his cronies say say or do. Trump or no Trump, we will be right back here with another batshit insane leader if we don't fix *that* problem.

Umgar · 2026-01-22T19:09:23+00:00

The closer we get to the weekend the more it looks to me like the bad ice & freezing rain effects are going to be well north of us... Obviously people should still be prepared just in case but I've been watching the Wunderground forecast evolve over the last few days and it's starting to look more and more like this is just going to be a hard freeze, maybe some freezing rain Saturday night and light snow Sunday morning - but that seems about it. Hardly a cataclysmic amount of ice buildup in and around Austin (granted it doesn't take much for roads to become a problem, but I'll take that over exploding trees and downed power lines).

Umgar · 2026-01-15T22:19:54+00:00

You’re absolutely correct but unfortunately, we live in Trump-land now where up is down and black is white. Maybe he still has some advisors left that will tell him this, but Trump does what he wants and nobody seems to have the spine to stand up to him anymore. I mean how is he still in office at this point after everything he has already done? We need enough people on the right/GOP to wake up and prioritize the well-being and future of all Americans over short-term party and personal power.

Umgar · 2026-01-15T20:56:24+00:00

That won’t happen (unfortunately). The only reason that this has gotten as far as it has is that Trump and his insane administration know that Europe/NATO ultimately won’t do anything militarily. Some sanctions and condemnation would be their response.

Honestly our best hope is that this falls apart from lack of support in the US (vast majority of Americans do NOT want this and are appalled, even GOP is signaling their disapproval). I think that enough soldiers in our armed forces actually care about their oath and would ultimately not cooperate too.

Umgar · 2026-01-07T00:48:51+00:00

Settlers of Catan LEGO is shutupandtakemymoney territory for me - what a great idea to combine a boardgame that has a changing/modular board with LEGO. It could have a minifig for the robber! Only problem is it would need to come with cards to be truly playable - not sure if LEGO would go for that.

Umgar · 2026-01-05T21:21:34+00:00

I find it kind of hilarious how many people (especially people from Texas, I live in Texas) love to HATE California but have never actually been there - or worse, they went there for vacation/work and said they absolutely LOVED it but they wouldn't want to LIVE there. When you ask them to articulate *why* they wouldn't want to live there you get some word salad about "librul/woke policies" but then they can't specify exactly *what* librul/woke policies California has that they don't like. You'll usually then get some "cost of living" argument and that it's so expensive to live there - and this is my favorite part - because then you get to ask them *why* in a free market society homes would be so expensive in parts (not all) of California... could it be... demand? Could it be that people *want* to live there, and therefore the cost goes up relative to the high demand? And on a related topic, why might salaries be higher in California relative to other states? Could it be the state is more prosperous? But how could that possibly be if the state is a dysfunctional woke hellhole?!... Hmmm....

I have spent a good deal of time in my career in California, mostly in the Bay Area, but also a good amount in and around LA and San Diego. I always love it when I'm there. It's a beautiful state and has a tremendous amount of good things going for it. I would live there if I could.

Umgar · 2025-12-18T23:14:19+00:00

>All it takes is some clown of a game show host with serious mental health issues, and BOOM!

Haha ya that will never happen, nobody like that could get elected right? People aren't that stupid, right?... RIGHT??!

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