Illegal casinos in Los Angeles are cropping up everywhere from warehouses to homes and are largely benefiting incarcerated members of a prison gang called the Mexican Mafia, authorities say. that casitas, Spanish for “little house,” are “everywhere, to be honest with you.”
The gambling houses are also called “nets,” short for the internet cafes of the early 2000s, or “tap taps” and “slap houses” for the sound heard from outside the gambling rooms as players hit buttons and joysticks on the machines. A prison gang called the Mexican Mafia has been reportedly running illegal casinos throughout Los Angeles.“The way I see it, the Mexican Mafia is not much different than the Italian mob,” Velasquez told the outlet. “You open a smoke shop, you’re selling gaming software or you have a [gambling] machine, some [gang member working for the Mexican Mafia] is going to walk in there and say, ‘Hey, you can’t do this in our area without our permission, without our protection.
“A lot of people that live in the area where they’re operating came into a lot of money through EDD fraud, and then they went and dumped it into these machines,” he said. The gambling houses clientele often includes other gang members and drug-users, which has fanned the flames of crime at the operations, including assaults and shootings.
Velasquez told Fox News Digital that he doesn’t believe the illegal casinos are necessarily driving crime across LA, but they are affecting the specific areas where the casinos are located.
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