Our Reporter Joined Police on an Underground Gambling Den Bust in California | Beige Luciano-Adams

Underground casinos—also known as “slap houses” or casitas — are spreading across Southern California faster than law enforcement can shut them down. Hidden in homes, storefronts, and industrial sheds, they are built around imported games and used as hubs for drugs, guns, prostitution, and other street crime.

Epoch Times reporter Beige Luciano-Adams rode along with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department on a casino raid in El Monte. She describes what the rooms look and sound like when they are operating, how the machines reach the black market, and how cheap and easy these operations are to copy and reopen after a bust.

Host Benjamin Trenerry talks with Luciano-Adams about that raid, the “whac-a-mole” problem facing local police, why charges often fail to stick, and what it takes for a larger case—such as Orange County’s Operation Gangsta’s Paradise—to make a dent.

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