I was in the media room when Richard Lee virtually guaranteed that Jamie Gold would eventually win the World Series. Jamie Gold hadn't made any friends at the Rio, as spectators, dealers, fellow players and members of the media enjoyed his inflated opinion of himself, his entourage, his body guards (allegedly hired so nobody would talk to him in the bathroom) and his outrageously rude, insulting, "I'm from Hollywood so I'm better than you" behavior. When we saw Richard Lee get all his money in with pocket jacks against the only guy at the table who could bust him, we wove a tapestry of profanity that still hangs over Las Vegas to this day[1]

The general consensus among the poker professionals and writers I know is that Jamie Gold and Bodog are bad for poker, (Bodog girls quite obviously excluded) so Richard Lee got himself a spot on a lot of lists when he gave Gold a nearly insurmountable chip lead with a questionable play.

It would appear that Richard Lee has gotten himself onto another, more serious list with another questionable play, possibly running an ilegal bookmaking operation out of a home in San Antonio. Police say that tax records indicate that the home is owned by Lee, and that it was the "brains or the nerve center" of an operation with payouts in excess of $500,000. At the house, police found a money-counting machine, five Lexus cars, multiple plasma-screen TVs, and a large amount of cash with receipts for dozens of bets.

If the allegations prove to be true, and if reports of it being that Richard Lee are accurate, it will be yet another black eye on the 2006 WSOP, which really can't afford many more.

Further details and analysis can be found at PokerNews, through the link below.


[1] With gratitude and apologies to Jean Shepherd.