How not to leave the casino (take one)

Author: Simon Dexter

If you get the opportunity, take a look at the short KMPH News Channel clip currently doing the rounds on YouTube.

It features a segment called Inside the Force, extracts from the previous night’s beat spent with the Fresno Police Department.

In it, a man is being arrested for no apparent reason; he’s caused no offence, hasn’t robbed anyone, nor shown any inclination to do so. Instead, as he has stepped onto the street outside of a city casino, police have moved in to caution him for his betting habits at the poker table.

No, he hasn’t gone all-in with rags knowing his opponent has a Royal Flush, nor has he displayed a tendency to act in any traditionally crazy manner beloved by well, crazy folk and poker greenhorns. Instead, when it was his turn to bet, he declined the opportunity to use his chips and pulled a bag of cannabis from his pocket, thrown it onto the table and attempted to use it as his betting currency. The whole episode was caught on the casino’s CCTV; as soon as the establishment’s security head saw it, he called the Boys in Blue.

Once the police handcuff him and escort him to the back of a patrol car, the man appears puzzled with all of the fuss. He wonders what’s wrong and pulls out a Cannabis Club Card to show the cops; cue bewilderment. Quick as a flash, one cop asks whether it’s a frequent flyer pass.

It transpires that the guy threw an ounce of pot into the pot, which means he’s to be charged not only with possession, but as he tried to bet with his stash, with ‘intent to distribute’ too. What was that about truth being stranger than fiction?

We’d like to hear what’s the strangest thing you’ve ever bet in a poker game; the best response wins a stash of - in poker chips.