Cops Raid Poker Rooms in Surat & Ahmedabad Bringing Poker Room Operations to a Standstill in Both Cities, Exclusive Interview With Jaydeep Dawer

Jaydeep Dawer
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  • PG News May 6, 2017
  • 6 Minutes Read

Gujarat was fast emerging as the next hot destination for poker in the country but the recent police clampdown on poker rooms in the state has shocked the entire poker community.

We had earlier reported about the police raid in Surat on April 30, wherein 32 people including Hetal Desai and Jaydeep Dawer were arrested for running a poker game in a commercial complex. Just yesterday Times of India reported a similar raid on a poker room in Ahmedabad.

A direct fallout from the raids was the suspension of operations at other poker rooms in these cities. KN Suresh posted about the suspension of operations at IPA Ahmedabad on social media promising to resume operations soon. “Poker in Ahmedabad is suspended until we get more clarity from courts. It’s the safest thing for us poker players considering that the authorities seem to be confused.
While they sleep over our representation & instead of answering the queries before courts the authorities have become aggressive and in a evidently boisterous mood.
IPA will be moving the Hon’ble High Court of Gujarat during the vacation over the next week and flip this upside down. Cheers!!”

The sequence of events is similar to that seen in Bengaluru last year. Despite the Karnataka High Court ruling recognizing poker as a game of skill, Rockets Poker Room was raided in August last year during the Poker Galactica Live Tour where cops seized crores from players without even submitting a seizure list.

While the reasoning behind the raids and the legality of the same is still unclear, it is pertinent to note that a number of these operators had filed suitable applications before the Gujarat High Court to conduct such games. Indian Poker Association (IPA) had moved a petition in the Gujrat High Court in October last year after police restricted operations at the club. Even Dawer’s AAA Gaming Pvt Ltd had filed a similar petition in February and the matter is likely to be listed on 9th June, 2017.

PokerGuru spoke to KN Suresh from IPA Ahmedabad who confirmed the news and said, “Well I have posted it on Facebook that its injustice everywhere and we are taking proper steps to sort the issue. I have been working with the authorities to see where we have gone wrong or where we went wrong in communication with one another. For now, I just know that 2 poker rooms have been raided and all the poker rooms were closed today. This shouldn’t be that serious but we can’t risk it as it directly comes from police commissioner’s office and I don’t know what steps will be taken or how the operators are going to respond. If I am not going to be allowed to play or allow to teach or spread poker awareness or allowed to be involved with activities of Indian poker association or the Indian Poker Academy or the institute of poker in live skills, all of these I am a secretary of and involved with these organizations and all these organizations are out to take steps in making poker legal and get the sport recognized as a game of skill. I assure that within a week’s time everything should be sorted as the matter would come up in court and we will be moving to higher judiciary channels if I don’t get positive response from the court.”

Even as IPA suspended operations at Ahmedabad, they announced the launch of Delhi’s first legal poker club in Radisson Blu, Paschim Vihar. Rajeev Raut on behalf of IPA shared the news on social media, “Excited To Open IPA – SAFE HOUSE POKER ROOM @ RADISSON BLU, PASCHIM VIHAR”

One of the key accused in the Surat raid – Jaydeep Dawer took to social media to reply and spread the word on the series of events, “This morning as the Sun Shone, it guided me to pen down the TRUTH related to the events that have happened in the past few days. The Media has been all over scanting for any misinformation they can extract from the air since 30th April. This is my effort to make it easy for them when it comes to POKER!!!!

1. POKER is a skill Game and it is out of purview of the Bombay Prevention of Gambling Act of 1955 & Gujarat Prevention of Gambling Act 1987.

2. Poker has a legit status in West Bengal & Karnataka. A Criminal Miscelleous Application Petition is pending before the High Court of Gujarat since more than 3 months. This is our effort to to obtain the same status for the game in the state of Gujarat.

3. Media quotes, “Poker mania nu jugaar ramaato hato”. Well, If its Poker, it can’t be termed as Gambling & if its Gambling, its definitely not Poker. And there is no such game as Poker mania.

4. Media says, we were operating a Casino. A Casino comprises of games Roulette, Black Jack, Flush, Ander Bahar which are purely games of chance, while a Poker Room though a part of the casino is always separate and insulated from the above games. At our facility, we did not have any provision for any of the above Games of Chance.

5. Media says I travel the country to play Poker and I am an expert in the game. Is it unlawful to travel in the country to play Poker? Expertise requires skill in the game and we have numerous players who are experts in Poker. But One can only get lucky in Games of chance and to be an expert in them without cheating is unheard of I guess!!! This Media themselves prove that Poker is not Gambling as they complement me of being an expert in the game.

6. A Law makes an activity legal/illegal. In absence of a law, can an activity be vetoed Illegal?

7. If there is no law for Poker, its high time some definite laws are framed about the game rather than framing a few Poker passionates as accused without proper knowledge & Truth about the game.

This is a humble request to the Media (Divya Bhaskar, Gujaratmitra, The Times of India) that if they are genuinely concerned about this issue, they can contact me on 9825120132 and procure the specific details on any of the above mentioned points.

To all my Poker Buddies – This is not a war but it is a small fight from our end to get Poker where it belongs in our country. If all of you agree, please share this post. Thanks!!!!!

#pokerlawsinindia #poker #TOI #Divyabhaskar #Gujaratmitra #skillgame#legal #pokerinindia #pokerasport

We spoke to Dawer to bring the in-depth story of what actually happened at the Surat Raid and here are excerpts of the interview:

 

Can you tell us about the raid? What happened and on what basis were the 32-people arrested?

The local Police raided our premise at 3:15 am. They recovered Rs 8700/- from our cashier desk and about Rs. 4.5 lacs from the player’s individual pockets. They seized 12 cars and 2 mopeds belonging to our players. Apart from this, they seized all the poker goods or chips, tables, decks and dealer buttons etc. They booked everyone under the Prevention of Gambling Act #4 #5. They misbehaved with our players as if we were professional criminals. They put all the players in the lock up till the time bail was granted. Me and two other players were victims of physical assault, which they used during interrogation.

 

What are the steps you had taken to ensure safe and legal operations at the venue?

We are planning to file a petition for quashing of the FIR in the Gujarat High Court very soon. Apart from this, our Petition of Poker representation is pending for hearing on 9th June in the same court. Till we get a clear nod from the Honorable court, we have suspended our operations in view of safety of our players.

 

Can you share more details on the FIR filed by the police.

As far as police case or the FIR is considered, they are probably going to file a charge sheet in due course of time like 4 – 6 months. Now they seem completely disinterested because of the case being registered and that the players have been bailed off. And as far as us and the players are concerned, we are planning to go for squashing the FIR in the Gujarat High Court and we will make full efforts to get this quashed as soon as possible. We will try to get this quashed before the charge sheet is filed so that the case is cancelled. So, they have put the basic gambling prevention act which is completely bailable with a fine of INR 500-10000. They could not find any substantial evidence to put any further charges.

 

Tell us about the raid in detail.

So, at 3 am these people (cops) came and first confiscated everybody’s mobiles so that no one can contact anyone and then they started jotting down their personal information like name, address and other details. Then they started jotting down the amount of cash each player had along with their car keys and any other valuables if they had anything on them. Then at around 7am they took all the players to the police station while Hetal Desai and myself were still at the club.

Our statements went on till afternoon and we were taken to the police station at around 1pm. That’s when they realized that they don’t have much of a case and because the players were high-profile and belonged to high background, the whole fiasco had already created a lot of hype and a lot of local media had already reached there (police station). They were unaware about what clause or IPC law they should put against poker so the inspector started interrogating us.

First, they interrogated a couple of our players using physical force so that the players tell them something, they were looking for more details regarding the money and everything as they could not find substantial money at the club. When they were unable to extract any information from the players, they brought me in for interrogation and physically assaulted me for around few minutes until I gave them something that satisfied them. Then started the bail proceedings and they officially filed the FIR. So, we got bail around 10pm at night.

The very next step is to get the FIR quashed and also to re-cover the belongings of players that were confiscated by the police. We have already started proceedings for that. Hopefully within a week’s time we should get all our belongings back.

 

What in your opinion was the reason behind this raid?

So there is a huge gap of communication between the authorities. There is a huge gap between what is ruled in the court and what reaches the police. There is a huge communication gap between the judiciary and the local authorities which has been the case in India for long. The local authorities and the police take advantage of all this whenever they get a chance to. Then they conduct these raids and they don’t even write or account anything on court papers.

They’re just concerned about gambling so they just see poker tables, they see cards so they just assume that something is going around with gambling. They don’t even know what is poker, they just see cards and poker chips which have some value and then they make a case of gambling straight away, then it is up to us to go to the court and prove our innocence.

 

You posted a message on FB urging the poker community to support you in this fight. How can the community support the same – kindly elaborate?

See I was just trying to put up what the media was trying to hide by misguiding the massed. they have the reach which is the basic population of the country. So, Times of India actually posted that Jaydeep Dawer is the mastermind behind all this and he is an expert in Poker and he has been travelling all across India who plays and wins all the time. He makes contact with the local circuit and players and that’s how he started the club, that’s how they have portrayed it, now can anybody question them that if its gambling, can anybody be an expert in a gambling game? How can you be an expert in a gamble? Gamble is when there is a probability of 50/50 or less. One can probably get lucky in gambling but how can one become an expert in gambling?

If they are saying that we are experts in poker, then that itself says that it’s a game of skill because you need skill to be expert at something. But for the general public consisting of our parents/uncles/aunts, for them when they read such a thing in media; they only understand it at face value.

So, there is no way that I can reach out to that number of people who the media reaches out to. So, my agenda was to reach out to as many people on social media and I think that the poker community should help me reach out to the masses so at least this misguided information of media gets nullified.

Media is only reporting the information that it gets from the authorities which are in any case misinformed. Authorities give them 60 to 70% of this information and now to get a crisp story out of it the media will cook that rest 30%. So, this 30% they add from the surroundings or from the things they have heard; whatever they can catch hold of. They just need to make a sensational story. So, the entire story is either partially true or entirely false. By the end of the day the people who are ignorant about poker, who don’t know what exactly poker is, when they read this stuff they totally get influenced by these stupid things.

I would just like to request all the poker buddies and all the poker enthusiasts to just spread the word as much as you can, just share your thoughts whatever you feel or add to whatever I have said so that it reaches at least an equal number of people, if not more, who read the negative part of it.

Just share it as much as possible, so that a layman can understand and evaluate after reading both sides of it on what is correct and what is incorrect rather than just reading one part of the story and evaluating. I know I have the support of the community and all and we are fighting the case with full strength but I would just like to request my Poker Buddies to share this as much as they can.

 

What does this raid mean for the future of the game in Gujrat? We are also aware of poker rooms running in other places in Gujarat like Ahmedabad – how does it affect them?

We all are taken aback in Surat and Ahmedabad and we are wondering what all has gone wrong with the authority suddenly and why are they taking this approach. So now it’s a matter of wait and watch. We hope to approach the judiciary as fast as possible and either take an interim relief or an injunction to prevent all these authorities from harassing us in the future.

 

What’s the update on Online Poker site PoKeRMaNiA?

Actually, we were planning to launch our online poker website PoKeRMaNiA very soon before this happened but because of the sudden sequence of events which have happened we still plan to launch poker mania but with a slight delay. Hopefully in the next 45 to 60 days we should be able to work on the website again. And we will work on the online space till we get the necessary licenses from the judiciary to proceed with live games.

 

Any parting words or anything you would like to add?

At the end, I would just like to say that wish me good luck and at this point of time the community should stick together and support each other and try to take this sport to the level it deserves.

Keep following the latest updates on this story right here on PokerGuru!

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