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 wa ...
California
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
.
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 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 fam ...
,
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 cards are dealt fa ...
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 play ...
, 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 f ...
. 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 in Bell Gardens, California. According to one criminal complaint,
Gilbert was indicted in Miami 4 days after his death. His son Michael also was indicted.
The U.S. Government seized the casino in April, 1990, after a jury found that $12 million of the $22 million used in its construction came from Florida drug smugglers.Griego, Tina Forfeiture Laws Give U.S. a Piece of a Casino : Narcotics: Government now owns about 30% of Bicycle Club in Bell Gardens, which was built to a large extent with smuggled drug money. Los Angeles Times, August 22, 1990 The club's profits were frozen and placed in a special U.S. Marshals 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 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, p ...
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'' dealing with the murder of a successful card-counter, who coincidentally was also heavily into bicycle home repair.