Canada Illegal Gambling
A full-patch member of the Hells Angels and three other men have been charged with illegal gambling after an investigation by B.C.’s anti-gang agency.
The Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit searched Big Shots Café, at 3980 East Hastings St. in Burnaby, on July 4, area residents told Postmedia at the time.
This week, a charge of being “found in a common gaming or betting house” was laid against café owner Francisco Batista Pires, as well as New Westminster resident Jay Arnold Franco, 40, 58-year old Richard William Kosterman, of Delta, and Burnaby resident Andrew David MacFarlane, 36.
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CFSEU Sgt. Brenda Winpenny said Thursday that the agency’s Joint Illegal Gaming Investigation Team began an investigation into a suspected illegal gaming house at the business in October 2019.
When the search warrant was executed in July police found “several individuals participating in activity that appeared to be that of an illegal gaming house,” Winpenny said. “Seized from the business were items such as; poker tables, slot machines, cash, poker chips and playing cards.”
Winpenny said that “Illegal gaming, and the locations that allow them, have been the root of other criminal offences that impact the safety of the public.”
The popularity of gambling as a form of entertainment has dramatically increased over time. While most gambling is harmless, some people do become “hooked” on it just as some people become dependent on alcohol. Similarly, internet gaming is played using personal devices and computers through the Internet. Online gambling was considered illegal and was not regulated in any of the provinces of Canada until 2009. However, this did not stop Canadians from gambling on offshore sites, which still retain a high level of popularity. Since the legalization of online gambling Canada legal has grown rapidly and significantly. Gambling Laws in Canada Some decades ago, gambling was illegal in Canada, but the laws keep on evolving. Casual raffles and bingo were legalized for charitable events and horse races, a decade later. Gaming machines followed in 1985, and several years later, online gaming as gambling became more popular.
Pires is a longtime Hells Angel, currently with the Nomads chapter. He was not at the café Wednesday when a Postmedia reporter called for comment.
The provincial court database confirmed that Pires appeared in Vancouver provincial court Wednesday on the charge. The other three accused are scheduled to appear on Friday.
Postmedia obtained a photo of police inside the café late on July 4.
The date of the alleged offence is June 18, 2020. Sources say the charge relates to illegal gambling that, allegedly, was going on in the back of the business.
Corporate records indicate that Pires incorporated Big Shots on June 10, 2004 with another man. The second director was replaced by Pires’s fellow Hells Angel Rob Alvarez on Jan. 1, 2005, the records state. Alvarez ceased being a director on Jun 8, 2008, though the City of Burnaby 2020 business licence lists both Pires and Alvarez as café operators.
An earlier drug trafficking conviction of Pires was cited in a recent B.C. Supreme Court ruling against the director of civil forfeiture’s attempt to get three Hells Angels clubhouses forfeited as instruments of criminal activity.
Justice Barry Davies accepted that Pires and others had used the East End clubhouse for trafficking on three occasions, but said that alone “does not establish that the East End Clubhouse was used in the past as an instrument of unlawful activity.”
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The B.C. Civil Forfeiture Office is appealing Davies ruling, which allowed the bikers to retain control of the East End and Kelowna clubhouses and returned the Nanaimo clubhouse to the local chapter.
Pires, now 57, and his fellow Hells Angel Ronaldo Lising were convicted in 2001 of conspiracy to traffic cocaine and sentenced to 4½ years in jail.
They appealed and lost, first in the B.C. Court of Appeal and in November 2005 in the Supreme Court of Canada.
At their 2001 sentencing, Justice Kenneth Smith found the two men were joint operators of a wholesale cocaine business that supplied two well-known Vancouver strip bars.
He said the two bikers were “criminals in the true sense” because they walked down a criminal path “deliberately and for selfish reasons.”
Facebook gambling is illegal in Canada without a licence, says SLGA.
Social media is a global constant these days. We go on Facebook or Instagram or Twitter, sharing the everyday activities of our lives and catching up on those of our friends and family. There’s not much you can’t do on social media these days, even gambling.
But gambling in Canada is a tricky thing. In many ways, the laws are verbose and ambiguous at best. Online gambling, for example, is a matter the nation and its provinces and territories have yet to solidify legislation for. Are international operators legal, or illegal?
That’s a debate we’ve already undertaken. (You can read more on the legality of online casino gambling here.) The hot topic today is whether it’s legal to profit from gambling on Facebook and other social media websites.
According to the Saskatchewan Liquor and Gaming Authority (SLGA), the answer is “No”, at least not without a licence.
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Facebook Gambling Illegal in Canada
The issue stems from a developing story that appeared on PAnow.com this morning. It revolves around a young mother who turned to social network gambling in hopes of raising enough money to pay off an overdue utility bill.
Kayla Dipaolo is a 24 year old resident on the James Smith Cree Nation, in the Melfort area southeast of Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. She has a 6 year old daughter, and another on the way. When her finances fell behind, owing a $700 power bill, her friends and family suggested she start up a Texas Hold’em style bingo game on Facebook.
“I had a couple of friends who used [Facebook] to fundraise for their weddings and my mom had told me to give it a shot if it would help me in my situation,” says Dipaolo.
Fundraising over social media is one of the latest technological trends. The young mother never even considered the idea that it might not be a legal means of raising money. It was a classic case of ‘everybody’s doing doing it‘.
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Dipaolo sold cards for the poker style tournament on her Facebook page. The winner would receive half of the profits, while Dipaolo retained the other half. She says she had already raised $200, and that her friends had told her it was perfectly legal. She had no reason to question that, until the SLGA stepped in and shut her down.
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David Morris is the Manager of Communications and Public Education for the SLGA. He says he’s quite familiar with the concept of hosting raffles, bingos and other fundraising activities via social media. He’s also familiar with what the law requires in such situations.
“According to the Criminal Code of Canada all gaming activity must be licensed by the province in order to be legal,” says Morris.
He adds that applying for a licence is not a difficult process. It can be done online, and there are no fees involved so long as the prize is under $2,500. He says applicants can even apply for a triple gaming grant, in which they can receive an additional 25% of the net proceeds.
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However, he was quick to point out that not every applicant receives approval. The SLGA reviews licence applications on a “case by case basis”, says Morris. “The Criminal Code does have some parameters as to what is eligible to be charitable in terms of gaming.”
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He was unable to comment on whether Dipaolo might face any consequences for hosting an unlicenced Facebook gambling scheme. “Our role as SLGA is to regulate gaming,” he says. “Unlicensed gaming is a matter for the police to consider.”
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