The Bicycle Hotel & Casino (commonly, "The Bike") is a
poker
Poker is a family of comparing card games in which players wager over which hand is best according to that specific game's rules. It is played worldwide, however in some places the rules may vary. While the earliest known form of the game w ...
cardroom
A cardroom or card room is a gaming establishment that exclusively offers card games for play by the public. The term poker room is used to describe a dedicated room in casinos that is dedicated to playing poker and in function is similar to a car ...
in
California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
.
Founded by George Hardie Sr. in 1984, located in
Bell Gardens, California
Bell Gardens is a city in the U.S. state of California in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. Located in Los Angeles County, the city's population was 42,072 at the 2010 census, down from 44,054 at the 2000 census. Bell Gardens is part of the G ...
, The Bicycle Casino offers a selection of poker games and Asian games, with a wide range of limits. The casino features games including:
Blackjack
Blackjack (formerly Black Jack and Vingt-Un) is a casino banking game. The most widely played casino banking game in the world, it uses decks of 52 cards and descends from a global family of casino banking games known as Twenty-One. This fami ...
,
Texas Hold 'Em
Texas hold 'em (also known as Texas holdem, hold 'em, and holdem) is one of the most popular variants of the card game of poker. Two cards, known as hole cards, are dealt face down to each player, and then five Community card poker, communit ...
,
Seven Card Stud
Seven-card stud, also known as Seven-Toed Pete or Down-The-River is a variant of stud poker. Before the 2000s surge of popularity of Texas hold 'em, seven-card stud was the most widely played poker variant in home games across the United States, ...
,
Omaha hold 'em
Omaha hold 'em (also known as Omaha holdem or simply Omaha) is a community card poker game similar to Texas hold 'em, where each player is dealt four cards and must make their best hand using exactly two of them, plus exactly three of the five ...
,
Mexican Poker
Five-card stud is the earliest form of the card game stud poker, originating during the American Civil War, but is less commonly played today than many other more popular poker games. It is still a popular game in parts of the world, especially i ...
Baccarat (card game)
Baccarat or baccara (; ) is a card game played at casinos. It is a comparing card game played between two hands, the "player" and the "banker". Each baccarat coup (round of play) has three possible outcomes: "player" (player has the higher score ...
.
Financing to build the original Bicycle Club casino was provided by
Sam Gilbert
Samuel Gilbert (born 19 August 1986) is a former professional Australian rules footballer who played for the St Kilda Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL).
Early life
Gilbert is a rugby league convert who didn’t start playi ...
, who allegedly used money partially obtained from laundering drug money.GLENN F. BUNTING and TINA GRIEGO Miami Trial Gives Startling New Portrait of Sam Gilbert. Los Angeles Times, April 23, 1990
The casino is home to the ''Legends of Poker'', a tournament series established in 1995 that now includes a stop on the
World Poker Tour
The World Poker Tour (WPT) is an internationally televised gaming and entertainment brand. Since 2002, the World Poker Tour has operated a series of international poker tournaments and associated television series broadcasting playdown and the fi ...
. Prior to the Legends, the casino's main tournament series was called the ''Diamond Jim Brady''.
Seizure and indictment
In 1987, Sam Gilbert was the subject of a federal investigation into money laundering and racketeering charges. According to the investigation, a scheme to launder the money received from smuggling marijuana was put together to finance the construction of the
Bicycle Casino
The Bicycle Hotel & Casino (commonly, "The Bike") is a poker cardroom in California.
Founded by George Hardie Sr. in 1984, located in Bell Gardens, California, The Bicycle Casino offers a selection of poker games and Asian games, with a wide ...
U.S. Marshals
The United States Marshals Service (USMS) is a federal law enforcement agency in the United States. The USMS is a bureau within the U.S. Department of Justice, operating under the direction of the Attorney General, but serves as the enforce ...
account until the court held a civil hearing to determine which partners knew that the club was built with drug money.
George Hardie and The Park Place Associates ownership were exonerated in 1990, and they regained their 35% stake.
In July 1991 a Florida federal judge ruled that at least one of the partners, former Los Angeles Westside banker M. Dale Lyon, knew about the club's financing. Eight other partners in the LCP Associates, the partnership named for Lyon, Coyne and Pierson, agreed to forfeit portions of their interest in the club before the civil hearing began. LCP partners Julianne Coyne and former California Assemblyman David C. Pierson settled before the civil hearing. In 1991, they agreed to give up about half of their interest in LCP, which had a 65% stake in the casino.
By the time it sold its share of the casino in 1996, the US government had made tens of millions of dollars in profit from its share of the casino. As a partner in the club, the government also contributed to political campaigns to defeat the proposal to build a rival card club in Orange County.U.S. to Sell Share of Bicycle Casino for $25 Million /ref>
2017 raid
The casino was again raided by federal authorities citing money laundering as a part of an ongoing investigation into some players using the casino to exchange “dirty money” for chips, then turn cashing those in for “clean money.”
Live at the Bike
The Bicycle Hotel & Casino was the first
brick and mortar
Brick and mortar (also bricks and mortar or B&M) refers to a physical presence of an organization or business in a building or other structure. The term ''brick-and-mortar business'' is often used to refer to a company that possesses or leases r ...
casino to broadcast a live poker cash game over the
Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...
in a program known as ''Live at the Bike''. It runs five nights a week, and features poker pros, celebrities and regular cash grinders. The show has always had card graphics and professional commentary, making it one of the longest running poker shows ever.
Expansion
The Bicycle Hotel & Casino underwent a major hotel expansion in the Fall of 2015. The new seven-story, 117,907 square-foot complex now includes live entertainment, gaming, cocktail lounge, brewery, fitness center, sundeck with an outdoor bar, and a number of places to dine.
In popular media
The Bicycle Casino was featured in an episode of the TV series ''
Numb3rs
''Numbers'' (stylized as ''NUMB3RS'') is an American crime drama television series that was broadcast on CBS from January 23, 2005, to March 12, 2010, for six seasons and 118 episodes. The series was created by Nicolas Falacci and Cheryl Heuton ...
'' dealing with the murder of a successful card-counter, who coincidentally was also heavily into bicycle home repair.