Legends Poker Houston has been hit with a blockbuster lawsuit that goes to the very ownership of the embattled poker room on Richmond Ave.

A group of ten plaintiffs have joined together to file a lawsuit against Legends Poker Room over improper treatment of their alleged nearly $1 million investment in the business, ownership recognition, payout of proceeds related to their investment and ownership.

In legalese, they’re citing breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, breach of covenant of good faith and fair dealing, fraud, fraudulent inducement to a contract, conspiracy, requesting damages and payment of their attorney’s fees.

To review, who exactly is Legends Poker Room? This lawsuit points to David La, Ho Jun Sin, Jie Wang, Mike Daniels, JJJ Vision LLC dba 52 Social. The group is referred to in the lawsuit as the “Defendant Company.” You can find details on this group throughout this website. We invite you to check out the depths of the issues that surround this ownership “cabal,” as we believe it should be referred to.

The ten plaintiffs allege — going back years to 2019, when JJJ Vision LLC dba 52 Social was formed to operate a poker club — they essentially have been cheated out of not only their investment money, but the proceeds they believe are rightfully owed to them. This group of plaintiffs, also known as the “California Group” say they invested $950,000 — nearly $1 million — in this business and that their investment and their ownership was never properly documented by the named group of defendants.

The plaintiffs allege that the Defendant Company earned monthly revenues of some $500,000. The plaintiffs allege that a substantial part of these monies was not distributed to them. The California Group also alleges that the “Defendants failed and refused to provide Plaintiffs and/or other owners with tax information and/or financial information indicating the amount of the money earned and explaining how the money was being spent. Additionally, cash would be collected and removed from the premises without any accounting to Plaintiffs and/or other owners.”

The above outlay of information related to this case, the group of owners known as the Defendant Company, and the plaintiffs known as the California Group, is essentially only the proverbial “10,000-foot view” of the case. There’s much more involved, which we will be detailing further in upcoming installments.

Please stay tuned for further developments.

To call Legends Poker Room in Houston “embattled” would be an understatement. This poker location, which is only popular because of all the freebies given away every day, week, and month (in our opinion) is constantly facing issues of its own making.

The latest is a lawsuit filed by Khalid Anwarzad, the sole plaintiff and a Texas citizen, who alleges that he was physically attacked following an encounter he had while visiting Legends Poker on Richmond Ave. in Houston.

The charges by Khalid Anwarzad allege that when he visited Legends just a couple months ago — Nov. 22, 2022 — he witnessed someone entering the poker room with a large duffle bag full of something. What it was, he didn’t know. But as he was watching this scene play out — and it was just happenstance that he was there at that particular time — as Legends security was examining the bag, Anwarzad noticed a knife on the side of the bag and pointed that out to security. Awarzad was aware of Legend’s “no weapons” policy, and apparently wanted to be sure that security knew about the knife.

The man trying to enter Legends with the duffle bag, referred to as “John Doe” in the lawsuit, became “irate,” as it says in the lawsuit, referred to Anwarzad as a “snitch,” and threatened that he would “kick [Anwarzad’s] ass.” The John Doe then left the poker room but remained outside in the parking lot area in front of Legends.

According to the lawsuit, “A few minutes later, Plaintiff [Anwarzad] left Legends and was then attacked and assaulted in the parking lot by John Doe.”

Anwarzad allegeds in his court filing that a security guard employed by Legends came out, saw the ongoing physical altercation, and did nothing to intervene in the assault; he apparently just stood there and watched, even though he was aware of what had just happened between Anwarzad and John Doe in Legends shortly before the alleged attack. This same security guard also allegedly refused to call the police regarding the incident.

Additionally, the lawsuit alleges that “The guard was aware of the threats to Plaintiff prior to the assault but did nothing to escort him safely to his vehicle or prevent the attack.”

And to add insult to injury, Legends has said that Anwarzad is now no longer welcome at the poker room and said they would not provide him or the police with surveillance footage of the incident. Police were called during the alleged attack, but interestingly, they declined to assist Anwarzad nor did they arrest this John Doe.

Anwarzad filed six causes of action against John Doe and Legends, including assault, mental anguish, gross negligence, and negligence.

Anwarzad also asked for damages and demanded a jury trial.

It goes without saying that we will be watching and following up as this case progresses through the legal system. Still to come: a second lawsuit involving ownership status and money — a lot of money.

Daid La, attorney Steve Grossman, and Dean Maddox, have teamed up to take over the Best Poker spot at 12163 Katy Freeway, Houston, and are rebranding and reopening it as Infinity Poker Club.

We know about David La, of course, but not much about Steve Grossman or Dean Maddox. Interesting info pops up right away around Houston attorney Steve Grossman. Check this out: on the website, noethics.net, we found this little item:

Nice, right? Always good to know you’ve got an ethical attorney involved in your business, you know?

Do a Google search for Dean Maddox, and you come up with some other interesting items. The first page of search results includes a plethora of stories on Maddox’s arrest after a poker room raid. He and a number of others each were charged with money laundering greater than $300,000.

These two are teaming up with David La (who has a multitude of his own issues detailed throughout this site) to open Infinity Poker Room in Houston? Perfect. Just perfect. The blind leading the blind? (Just asking questions here.) Or the Three Stooges? Take your pick.

Where’s Legendary Legends Poker Room, Houston, Owner David La?


Word has it that David La has been MIA — missing in action — lately. Allegedly David La owes some, ahem, Mexican businessmen, a very large sum of money. Purportedly six figures — somewhere around $200,000. And La is laying low.

Or, he’s laying really low. Like buried in a desert somewhere low.

David, you should surface and show your face sometime — let everyone know you’re OK and above ground, breathing.

Well, the fun (and by fun, we mean terror) continues at Legends Poker Room in Houston — an active shooter event. A guy in all black with a long gun and some sort of duffle bag went into Legends to rob the place. He was slinging his gun around, scooping up cash and generally behaving menacingly.

Players at the tables saw him and literally dove under the tables. It’s amazing that this place hasn’t been shut down. Just check out all the police activity in other posts on this site detailing what goes on there on a continual basis.

A guy recently was murdered in the parking lot outside the Legends Poker Room. Just steps away from the front door. He was sprawled on this back on the parking lot, just a couple feet away from his car door. (More on that murder in a separate upcoming post.)

Just awful stuff happens there on a monthly, weekly, and almost daily basis, whether it’s directly or indirectly associated with Legends. Dangerous stuff. Citizen-threatening stuff. And no one cares about it or does anything about it? That’s just as awful. Mr. Mayor, City Council, do you not care about your city or the kind of businesses that exist there that endanger citizens going in and out of that parking lot?

Somehow, this has got to end.

Legends Poker Room Houston: A Guard Tower? Seriously?

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We’re waiting for the concertina wire to be strung, the Klieg lights to go up, and the armed guards to be stationed out in front of Stalag 17 here in Houston — sorry, not Stalag 17, we mean Legends Poker Room in Houston, Texas.

Seriously. Legends has to resort to THIS to deal with the crime problems associated with their poker room? Or do they have someone stationed in this guard tower to alert management and/or the owners about a raid on their place?

Here’s an idea: how about just run a straight-up legit poker room that operates within the laws of both Houston and Texas. Maybe try not to attract the criminal element with the way you allegedly skirt the laws. When it comes to your fiduciary responsibilities — like reporting earnings, selling booze, having appropriate licensing, and paying taxes. You know, typical legit business stuff.

Sooner or later, someone’s going to break through your crack security — guard tower or not — and do some serious damage to persons and property. Let’s be clear, this is in no way a threat, it’s just that your spot has a clear and consistent track record when it comes to crime. It’s clearly headed in that direction given the calls for police assistance that go out from your location on 9275 Richmond Ave. in Houston pretty much weekly. You really should button things up before it’s too late.

David La tries to keep a low personal profile. You’ll see him at Legends Poker Room pretty much any day of the week, all day long. But he tries to hide outside the poker club, and we guess rightly so. Who knows who could be after him with the kind of activity he’s been involved in.

But, he was easy enough for us to find. This is a photo:

By the way, that’s his car in the garage, too — a 2020 Lincoln MKZ. Legends Poker Room is only about 4 miles from his house — about a 12-minute drive.

Legends Poker Room, 9275 Richmond Ave., Houston, Texas.

The police have that location bookmarked for trouble with a capital T.

We’ve attached the “calls for service” as the police refer to it in the attached PDF. Click on the image above to be taken to the spreadsheet of calls involving police response to Legends Poker Room.

Calls for service to law enforcement agencies generally include calls to “911” for emergency assistance and may also include calls to non-emergency numbers.

Looking at this list, would you feel safe at the Legends Poker Room address?

Legends Poker Room exists in the 77063 zip code. Crime was up 21.9% in this zip code in 2020, according to Houston’s local ABC 13 Investigates analysis of Houston Police Department crime data (HPD), the most recent year this kind of data has been analyzed. There were 4,402 incidents reported to HPD in 2019 compared to 5,365 incidents reported in 2020. It continues to rise.

Let’s run down some of the calls: Just in the past few months, there have been four shootings (3) or discharge of weapons (1); burglaries; auto theft; theft from autos; assaults … every manner of serious crime — 13 calls in all.

Continue reading →

David La (along with other family members) owed the State of California more than $1,600,000 in unpaid taxes. Seven La family members, including David, signed an agreement allowing the government to apply an earlier cash seizure totaling more than $200,000 ($237,785 to be exact) to be applied to that debt.

The plaintiff in the case was the United States of America. The defendant was “$237,785.00 in U.S. Currency.” Claimants in the case were David La, Kent La, John La, Nancy La, Cindy La, Julie La and William La.

Confused? Yes, actual U.S. currency can be a defendant in a Federal case.

In this instance, the United States Attorney’s office in Los Angeles were attorneys for the plaintiff, the United States of America.

Quoting directly from the case, here’s how it reads:

“In its complaint in this action, plaintiff United States of America (the ‘government’) alleged that the defendant, $237,785.00 in U.S. Currency (the ‘defendant currency’) is subject to forfeiture pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 91(a)(1)(c). Claimants Kent La, John La, Nancy La, Cindy La, David La, Julie La and William La (collectively, the ‘claimants’) filed their claims of interest and answers disputing the government’s allegations.”

and

“The parties have agreed to settle this forfeiture action and to avoid further litigation by entering into this consent judgment.”

And later in the case document:

“$29,785.00 of the defendant currency has already been forfeited to the United States.”

“The remaining $208,000 of the defendant currency shall be used toward partial satisfaction of the restitution order in the amount of $1,678,743.30 to the California State Board of Equalization in the State of California v. La, BA 270564.”

Ouch. (Seems to be a familiar refrain in this whole David La/Legends Poker Room mess – our opinion.)