Waiting for Richard Lee's Laundry List

Anyone keeping up with the Richard Lee saga has to be shaking their heads as ever more sordid and silly details keep emerging. One of the most inane, as reported here, is that Lee was brazen or reckless enough to write "gamb. loss" in the memo field of several checks he wrote on his own account.

Now that'll get ya noticed. But whether or not Lee was actually running an internet bookmaking site --- the site traced to Lee carries official Internic registration info showing San Juan, Costa Rica offices --- there's another aspect that has more than a few people a bit uneasy: rumors are circulating that Lee's lists of betting customers include many well-known San Antonio figures, who would probably just not rather have their betting joneses made public.

Awww. I'm reminded of the time when I worked for a computer processing company behind the scenes of several large credit unions. On one occasion, our perpetually drunk lead programmer didn't properly test a field change he'd made to a program, resulting in a dozen or more statements for "secret accounts" being mailed to the homes (and wives) of the "leading husbands and citizens" who had squirrelled away some funny money. Now that was an "ooops" of major proportions.

But I've got a bit of an attitude about this type of thing --- I figure if the bookie or the madame or whoever it happens to be takes the fall for all the customers, and certain lists are out there, then the presence of big names shouldn't be squelched just because they've got the cash and connections to make those lists disappear. The worst type of justice, after all, is that which is purchased.

But whatever. It's been a long week with not much good poker news. Maybe next week, things will turn around, right?