A 42-year-old man of Chinese origin was imprisoned after being indicted this Thursday in Bobigny (Seine-Saint-Denis) for "keeping a gambling house where the public is freely admitted".
He had set up for several weeks an illegal gambling den, where we played mah-jong in the back room of a restaurant located in Aubervilliers.
In the opinion of an employee, the establishment welcomed a "clientele of regulars who came to order take-out".
“They would bring their deck of cards and go upstairs to play while waiting for their order,” she adds.
All this, she confesses, is not allowed.
But she refuses to admit that the restaurant had been turned into an underground gambling circle where betting was rife.
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It is however the intimate conviction of the investigators of the BRB (brigade of repression of the banditry) and of its group "Games".
A few days before the Chinese New Year, the BRB was able to verify that the game's demon is not about to be extinguished.
This Tuesday at 2 p.m., following an anonymous denunciation, the police raided the premises of this address located on the top floor of Cifa, the business center of Asian wholesalers in Aubervilliers.
On the first floor of the restaurant, they arrested ten people including the manager.
The man would have admitted the facts.
He was remanded in custody.
The players were released.
Around the two tables, games of mah-jong - a popular gambling game in China - and dice games followed one another.
That day, eight players were interrupted in full swing.
Also present were the manager of the gambling den, a waitress and kitchen staff.
Tens of thousands of euros found there
Upstairs, on the restaurant tables, which had been empty since the start of the health crisis, were all the equipment of the die-hard player, and large sums of money: 2000 euros were seized on the play mats, 4000 euros in a suitcase and 25,000 euros in a safe.
The eight players were found in possession of 30,000 euros in cash.
A tidy sum in relation to the amounts bet around the table.
"The value of the token was 20 euros and the minimum stakes were 1000 euros per game and per player," said a source.
Players present every day of the week
We bet all week but also on weekends, in games that did not exceed an hour.
The manager received a percentage of the winnings.
He would have admitted withdrawing 3000 to 4000 euros per month.
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According to several observers, gambling is omnipresent in the Asian community in the Paris region.
Latest example to date: during the night from Saturday to Sunday in Paris, in the 19th century, police station officials discovered another games room hidden in a restaurant.
Around midnight, rue de Lorraine, they were alerted by residents complaining of noise.
The patrol discovered a gambling den upstairs where about fifteen Chinese nationals were playing mahjong and cards.
The owner was arrested for endangering the life of others insofar as the sanitary rules were not respected.
All the money was seized.
