Schnaubelt says he already had sunk about $10,000 in permits and other expenses for the firm's location at 18425 North 19th Avenue at that point — so there was no turning back. He had come across the ex-judge's name in researching his own venture. When he heard of Lee's troubles, he called and offered assistance. That led to the first meeting and interview and, later, to Schnaubelt's volunteering as Lee's trial manager. Earlier this year, he sat with Lee at the defense desk every day of the trial.
Interestingly, considering Lee's talk of the BIA-controlled casinos, Schnaubelt's online résumé says he used to have Gila River Casinos as a client in a former business. In 2009, he says, he helped start the still-operating Poker Union at 7th Avenue and Union Hills. Esho Odisho, listed as that limited-liability corporation's sole member, agreed to split any proceeds with him 60/40, with Schnaubelt's meriting the smaller amount because he could invest only his time and energy, while Odisho put $30,000 into the business, he says. (Odisho's articles of incorporation state that the business' purpose is "retail sales of poker supplies.")
Victor J. Palagano III
Harold "Bud" Lee, a former Valley justice of the peace, was convicted this year on three felony counts related to his poker ventures.
New Times
The cops occasionally bust a non-tribal Phoenix-area poker room, but the businesses continue to flourish.
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Schnaubelt says he split with his partner when Esho "decided to stop paying me" after 10 months. Schnaubelt finally opened his own establishment in summer 2010. He maintains that the place was "not a card room" but a "civil and social movement that may offer members a facility from time to time."
The Tilted Jack's website, which announces that the place closed last month, appears to advertise a card room. There's a picture of the "player of the month" and a list of hundreds of players and their winnings. (The top player, "Jette," is said to have won 57 tournaments and $24,205.)
Schnaubelt argues that his club represented true social gambling, that players were the only ones who benefited. However, he adds that a cooperative can hire dealers or even hire himself as a web designer — which belies the idea that only players benefit from poker at such an establishment.
Lee's association and several other clubs operate under a similar idea — they're just a large bunch of friends playing poker.
Yet the very existence of storefront poker rooms, many of which are open seven days a week and might occasionally have cash games that last until dawn, appear to violate the legal interpretations posted on the Arizona Department of Gaming's website.
No one is supposed to "benefit" from non-tribal gambling, directly or indirectly, under Arizona's gaming rules. The host of an off-reservation establishment can take nothing from what is wagered or won and is forbidden from using gambling to attract people to a restaurant, bar, poker-supply shop, or other entity that makes money. Even a "suggested 'voluntary' donation" from players is disallowed, the site says.
Schnaubelt claims he had the only legitimate model for an off-reservation poker club, and that's why he invested $30,000 in The Tilted Jack while knowing he wouldn't benefit. He claims he did it to advance the cause of poker.
He wanted to "protest the BIA syndicate gambling empire," avoid playing poker on an Indian reservation, and show that it was possible to run a card room "not unlawfully," he says. But he had to close after two years because the "unquestionably illegal operations surrounding us smeared us and infiltrated and recruited players, all because I was outspoken against the rooms claiming to be legal when they aren't."
Schnaubelt has asked the cities of Phoenix, Tempe, and Peoria in recent weeks to regulate card rooms. That's long been one of Lee's goals, though cities have been mostly cool to the idea. A card room in Gilbert was forced to close in 2010 after city leaders questioned its legal status.
Lee and Schnaubelt believe that cities can authorize and regulate poker rooms, legally, without complying with state gaming rules, because no specific law exists prohibiting the parlors.
They express the need to keep poker "pure," without the exploitative quirks of Indian poker tables: Dealer "rakes" of the jackpot, the steep per-hand cost to stay in games, the lottery-like random drawings of "jackpot poker." But it's difficult to separate their talk of purity of the "sport" from their previous ambitions to operate successful poker rooms.
"I never denied that I was motivated by the idea that I would gain a great business enterprise, but my goal was an [association for poker]," Lee says when asked about financial incentive.
Even harder to understand is Schnaubelt's need to give authorities detailed information about every poker room he discovers — unless Archuleta is right that Schnaubelt simply is seeking revenge against former competitors.
A player at a local club who knows Schnaubelt described him as on an "obsessive mission." Even Lee says he advised Schnaubelt against providing information to the "DOG police," because he doesn't think it's good for their cause.
Schnaubelt denies he's vindictive. He says he believes that if the authorities shut down the state's illicit poker rooms, "people will get tired of Indian casinos" and push for legal poker. His preference would be "citizen's arrests and vigilante justice," because it would be the most newsworthy, he claims. But perhaps that's just talk — he adds that while he might like to go after certain clubs with which he has a beef, his wife doesn't want him risking the family's safety.
