Casino raid netted big poker winner

Raleigh, North Carolina - This was no back-room poker game or a small group tossing dice against a curb

Law enforcement officers say their bust early Sunday morning in Benson involved a full-blown casino with craps and blackjack tables, a roulette wheel, more than a dozen Texas Hold 'em poker tables, a full-service restaurant and a World Series of Poker winner, Maciek "Mike" Gracz of Raleigh.

State and regional authorities seized more than $70,000 and issued illegal gambling citations to 71 people. On Monday, state Alcohol Law Enforcement officials characterized the raid as perhaps the largest of its kind in state history.

Among those rounded up was Gracz, 26, who in 2005 won $1.5 million at the PartyPoker.com Million Tournament during a Pacific Ocean cruise and made it to the final table that summer at a World Series of Poker event in Las Vegas, winning a coveted gold bracelet and $594,460.

Ron Kaylor, the N.C. Division of Alcohol Law Enforcement's deputy director of operations, said the bust came after an investigation of several months involving an undercover agent. "Numerous" complaints from neighbors had alerted the state agency to the operation.

A glitzy gambling den

The casino near N.C. 242 and Bear Road in Johnston County even had a full-service kitchen with staff.

"It was like one of those big ones you see on TV," said Mike Robertson, director of Alcohol Law Enforcement, of the glitzy gambling den his agents found in a single-story, wood-frame building.

ALE veterans said a typical North Carolina gambling house might involve a couple of card games and several video poker games. Kaylor said he had never seen anything like Sunday's raid, which netted not only weekend gamblers from around the state but professionals from as far away as Henderson, Nev.

Like dozens of other players caught in the pre-dawn raid, Gracz was charged with misdemeanor gambling. It wasn't the first time. Gracz was hit with the same charge in Guilford County in December 2004.

Nicknamed "The Kid," Gracz first hit it big at an Atlantic City tournament where he won about $300,000 in late 2004, while still a student at N.C. State University. Not long after that, he got a business degree at NCSU, but his biggest business became poker, which he has turned into a personal Web site and work as a commentator.

In his poker tips on CBS' Sportsline.com, Gracz writes: "The most consistent way to build a bankroll is definitely playing in the cash games."

Cash, chips, craps

ALE agents, along with deputies from the Johnston County Sheriff's Office and state troopers, seized $70,196.25, a craps table, a roulette table and wheel, a blackjack table, more than a dozen Texas Hold 'em tables, dice, poker chips, playing cards, computer equipment and flat-screen television monitors.

A search warrant indicated the casino was operated by Christopher Bell of Raleigh, Jody McClure Garaventa of Youngsville and an unknown male named "Ray." Marvin Ray Johnson of Middlesex, who appears on Johnston County tax records as the owner of the property, was charged along with Bell and Garaventa with possession of gambling tables.

Efforts to reach those charged failed.

The dealers were charged with operating games of chance. Gambling violations are misdemeanors in North Carolina, Kaylor said, adding that a judge would decide what is to be done with the cash seized.

The warrant also said the building was the site of several big poker tournaments each year, that Johnson routinely carried large amounts of cash there and that he sometimes had a handgun.

The casino may have been wired for Internet access to offer online gambling. "We are still investigating that," Kaylor said.

He said he did not know how much money the casino raked in daily or whether the money seized Sunday was one day's take. ALE agents sat down at a bank Monday morning to count the money. They did not finish until midafternoon.

Robertson was impressed.

"We had one in Greensboro last year and took about $27,000 from a couple of card tables," he said. "But this is by far the biggest one we have got since I have been here."

News Added: 13 September, 2007

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