Haddonfield Man Sentenced to Probation for Role in Illegal Gambling Club

A Blackwood man and a Williamstown man who previously pleaded guilty to running an illegal poker club out of a storefront in Runnemede, as well as an illicit off-shore gambling website, were sentenced to prison time on Friday, Acting Attorney General John J. Hoffman announced.

Three other people who were dealers and cashiers at the club and previously pleaded guilty to promoting gambling were also sentenced on Friday.

Ryan Dion, 33, of Blackwood, pleaded guilty on July 18 to promoting gambling. He was sentenced to 364 days in jail and three years of probation.

Thomas Rand, 43, of Williamstown, pleaded guilty today to an accusation charging him with third-degree promoting gambling. He was sentenced to 270 days in jail as a condition of three years of probation.

Rand also admitted that he ran an illegal off-shore gambling website called 365Sportsbetting.com, from which he collected 10 percent of every losing bet.

Nicholas Gibbons, 26, of Stratford, and Gregory Henkel, 42, of Haddonfield, were each sentenced to three years of non-custodial probation.

John Bahn, 28, of Aldan, Pa., was sentenced to one year of non-custodial probation. Gibbons’ father, August Gibbons, 63, of Stratford, who also worked as a dealer and cashier, is scheduled for sentencing on Oct. 24. The state will recommend that he be sentenced to up to 364 days in jail as a condition of a term of probation.

“Backroom gambling parlors are not welcome in New Jersey, where we are working hard to eliminate any and all unregulated gambling enterprises that operate in the shadows outside the law,” Hoffman said. “Those who run these criminal enterprises will end up behind bars like these two men.”

“The only healthy thing about the purported health club these men ran was their profits,” said Director Elie Honig of the Division of Criminal Justice. “On the night we raided this illegal poker club in March 2014, detectives seized approximately $26,000 from the operators and players.”

“These three individuals bet against the law and lost,” said Colonel Rick Fuentes, Superintendent of the New Jersey State Police. “Illegitimate businesses do nothing to enhance New Jersey’s communities, and we will continue to work with our partners to root out those who endeavor to run these underground operations.”

The charges all stemmed from an undercover investigation by the New Jersey State Police Intelligence Section.

Dion and Rand profited by taking a portion of the money out of the pot with each hand of poker played.

The club was open Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday evenings into the early morning hours, and ran up to three Texas Hold’em, no limit poker games at a time.

The storefront for the Runnemede Social Club had a sign for the health club “Curves,” but inside were three regulation-sized poker tables, a “cash cage” where poker chips were purchased, and sofas arranged around a large, flat-screen TV.

From December 2013 through March of this year, an undercover State Police detective was able to gain access to the club as a poker player and observe the operation.

The undercover officer participated in a number of poker games during that period, observing all of the defendants in the gambling club routinely cashing players in and out at the cage.

Rand and Dion worked in the cage, as did Henkel.

August and Nicholas Gibbons, as well as John Bahn 28, of Aldan, Pa. were dealers. Bahn faces a pending charge of third-degree promoting gambling.

After becoming acquainted with the undercover officer, Rand invited him to set up a $1,500 account to bet on professional and collegiate sports events on his website 365Sportsbetting.com.

The undercover officer paid Rand $1,000 in cash, and Rand extended him $500 in credit.

Rand provided his bank account number so that the undercover officer could settle up with Rand online by transferring money into the account.

The undercover officer placed a number of sports bets on the website and settled up his losses with Rand.

The attached photo of Greg Henkel was provided by the Attorney General’s Office.