Seals with Clubs, a popular Bitcoin only poker room has shut down after law enforcement executed a no-knock raid on its owners’ Las Vegas home.
Brian Micon, the sites’ owner, was the target of the February 11 raid by agents of the Nevada Gaming Commission.
The agents broke down Micon’s front door with a sledge hammer and cuffed the former professional poker player and Bitcoin entrepreneur. By Micon’s telling, ten agents were used in the raid, something he saw as completely unnecessary.
Though they seized Seals with Clubs records and computers, they neither arrested Micon nor charged him with any crimes.
Micon was enraged by what he saw as an excessive use of force and took to the internet in a YouTube video laying out his displeasure with Nevada authorities saying:
I hope those agents felt that it is was wrong to disturb a happy, peaceful home like that, but I fear it was just another Wednesday for them and they were just lulzing before lunch.
He went on to say that the agents involved in the raid had been following his social media accounts and knew, or should have known, that he had small children in his home and was unlikely to pose a threat of any kind.
As of this writing it’s unclear as to what the agents were actually looking for in Micon’s home.
Following the raid, Micon and his partners shuttered Seals with Clubs saying in a statement to players that they could not continue to operate in what they described as, “a perpetual state of jeopardy.”
Seals with Clubs was quick to point out that the closure had nothing to do with software/security issues (as has been reported in the Bitcoin media) and that players would be able to recover any Bitcoin they’ve deposited with the site.
As for Micon, he’s moving on quickly both from Seals with Clubs and Nevada. He posted his YouTube video from igaming-friendly Antigua, where he plans to launch a new, more secure, Bitcoin gambling site in the near future.