CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Multiple law agencies raided the Jollytime Gameroom located along U.S. Hwy. 77 in Bishop around 6 p.m. Thursday.
When law officials arrived they found dozens of gaming machines inside.
Bishop Police Chief Edward Day told 3NEWS that his department received complaints about gambling and suspected illegal activity at the location.
"Obviously the business model of these game rooms is gambling, paying out, that's why they bring in customers, and when they do that they are crossing the line of legality, and that's when we get involved," he said.
Some 15 people were identified as patrons and released during the raid. One person was taken into custody for questioning. Day said that while stopping illegal gameroom activity is paramount -- ticketing patrons is not their priority.
"Usually those individuals are identified and released," he said. "They are not the aim of the investigation, most of the time they are being victimized by these businesses because they're not regulated businesses."
Day said that the raid was the result of hard work and investigative effort by the Nueces County Criminal Interdiction Unit. Mike Tamez is the supervisor for that unit and said that this type of activity is not a victimless crime.
"They can manipulate the devices inside, they control them, reprogram, so the house wins way more than the patron," he said. "Some of these investigations we've identified money goes overseas, traced money down to Mexico so there is a bigger criminal enterprise."
The Bishop Police Department joined the CIU about 2 years ago. Since that time, Day said his department has taken part in dozens of criminal investigations, seized thousands of dollars and gotten weapons off the streets.
"The DACIU is made up of five law agencies. We were able to work together, pull together our resources, personnel and have an impact in crime throughout the city," he said.
Even though this isn't the first time his department has responded to these calls, Day said that he still takes them very seriously.
"We report it to the appropriate individuals to investigate and we investigate to see if we find elements of the crime occurring. We get a search warrant, we get an arrest warrant and we execute it," he said.
Day told 3NEWS that residents will not always see the work that's going on behind the scenes.
"But what they don't understand is that there is a lot of investigation going on behind the scenes to build a case and find out if their complaints are legitimate," he said.
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