Texarkana, Texas: Three Charged Over Alleged Gambling Operation at Arcade

Three people have been charged over an alleged gambling operation at a Texarkana arcade — one that police had already visited once, and found nothing illegal about.

Andrew Tran, 26, and siblings Quyen Le, 21, and Thanh Le, 31, face charges of engaging in organized criminal activity, according to a September 23 report by Texarkana Today. The business is Crown Gameroom, in the 2700 block of New Boston Road in Texarkana, Texas.

A door nobody opened

The tip came first, back in May. Someone told Texarkana Texas Police the arcade had illegal gaming machines.

Officers went out in June and had a look around. All they saw were the machines the probable cause affidavit calls “100% skill-based” — the kind that are legal in Texas.

It took until July for that to change. Investigators met someone who said the illegal machines were real enough, but that they sat in a room you could only get into through a keypad.

So detectives pulled up the body camera footage from June and watched it again. The door was right there: an electronic keypad panel, and nobody had gone through it.

Inside the room

Getting in took help. A player had to arrange entry with a member of Crown Gameroom’s staff, the affidavit says.

So investigators sent in an undercover operative. On one visit, $50 of special investigation unit cash went into a machine offering poker, keno and blackjack, and the operative cashed out $450. On a later visit, the whole $50 was gone.

All three were each allegedly recorded helping the operative play in that room.

How investigators say it ran

The affidavit describes gambling that was “organized and continuing in nature” — at least three people performing functions in furtherance of the operation, controlled access and electronic communications used to screen and admit gamblers, machines concealed from normal observation, and cash paid out on accumulated credits.

All three were free on $50,000 bonds as of September 23, Texarkana Today reported, and the case has gone to 202nd District Judge John Tidwell.

Where the line falls between a skill machine and a gambling machine is contested well beyond Texas. Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court ruled in June that skill games count as slot machines under that state’s law, and a federal case over arcade gambling in southwest Missouri produced a guilty plea this month. Both are separate matters, unconnected to Crown Gameroom.

A charge is an accusation, not a finding. All three are presumed innocent.