Police in Boynton Beach, Florida, arrested a 49-old female Thursday for running an illegal gambling business inside her own record shop, multiple reports by local media informed. Alison J. Henry-Abner was detained and held at the Palm Beach County Jail on a $1,000 bond.
After a seven-month-long investigation by the Boynton Beach Police Violent Crimes Task Force, a search warrant for the Caribbean Record Store at 558 E. Gateway Blvd. found out clear evidence for running illegal gambling operations at the site.
Undisputed Evidence for Illegal Gambling
Besides the laptops and desktop computers, police discovered $6,100 in cash, printed gambling tickets, gambling receipts, bank deposit slips, and other business documents. Another $2,173 split into 12 separate payouts and then bundled together was found in the main office, with each of the payouts having a gambling ticket attached to it.
More money was found throughout the shop, another $511 inside a desk in the main office, and another $554 in a different desk. Police also discovered a hidden wall inside the bathroom which contained $2,573, and a little over $200 was found in Abner’s car which was parked on the property.
The owner of the record store admitted during police questioning that she was running some kind of a gambling game of chance but was unable to specify the name of the game. According to Abner, people were picking between one and four numbers and placing money on each number, with the winning combinations based on the Florida Lottery’s daily drawings, the police clarified.
Daily turnover from the game of chance was between $3,000 and $5,000, split into 100 bets on average, Abner told the police, admitting to being only the middle man in the operation. Another male who she only knew by the nickname ‘Geo’ was running the game and collecting the money, and her share from this was between 8% and 10% of the bets.
Regarding the record shop, Abner informed investigators she was the only person working at the business and that all the money she got from the game of chance was duly deposited into her business account.
Considering the daily turnover rate, just for the 7 months police were investigating the case the illegal gambling operation had incurred losses to the state-run lottery to the extent of $1 million.