Wild. The slots thing - seems so easy for someone to rat on them and then so easy for the cops to break it up.
The Manhattan one was poker only. Steel door with a camera, get buzzed into a second door where you talk to somebody and they only buzz you up if they recognize you.
The poker room had two nice tables and a little bar where you could buy drinks. TVs playing sports. Seemed to be Asian-run.
Similar setup, this was Italian.. but yeah they used to get rooms busted by cops all the time. They had trucks full of slots. No one even sat in those places, they just went to pick up the cash every day (I know this because I accompanied someone on their rounds to pick up cash from the slot machine apartments once, and was kinda shocked that some of them had no one inside at all. Just like, some studio apartment on 14th and another on Canal and another on Ave B. Wall to wall with slightly used slots hah)
[edit] There was also one night I showed up to work only a few hours after the cops had raided the poker room, and they were just getting back up and running.
The Manhattan one was poker only. Steel door with a camera, get buzzed into a second door where you talk to somebody and they only buzz you up if they recognize you.
The poker room had two nice tables and a little bar where you could buy drinks. TVs playing sports. Seemed to be Asian-run.