All language subtitles for black.market.with.michael.k.williams.s01e05.480p.hdtv.x264.rmteam

,

New York City, it was --

it was I felt like
I had been cheated.

How do I not know
that all of this

is going on right under my nose?

Michael:
Right now, how many illegal

poker games exist
in New York City?

-All five boroughs?
-Yeah.

More than I could count.

It's just about the action.

It's just about
the...action.

I guess I fold.

I might as well
give this money away.

If you take a huge group
of people that play poker,

less than 5%
will end up winners.

If you are not part of that
small percentage of winners,

then you're a loser.

[ Door creaks open ]

Michael: Our goal is just
to simply show the world

a window as to why people
do the things they do,

where that desperation
comes from.

It's like they say,
when the system fails you,

you create your own system.

"Black Market,"
NYC, Vice, baby.

This is what we doing tonight.

I am about to be introduced
to a whole 'nother city

that exists within the city
that I was born and raised.

You know, growing up,
I saw a lot of gambling

in my community.

Rolling dice, craps, cee-lo.

But, you know, that wasn't
really my thing at the time.

I do know that a lot of people

get sucked into this
underground gambling scene.

Why would you want to risk being
robbed or shot or arrested?

I want to find out
why so many people

are willing to risk so much.

Right now,
I'm about to go meet up

with Christian Alexander.
What's up, brother?

He's one of the kings
of the night life in New York,

and he's about to take me
to one of the most notorious

gambling spots in the city.

[ Cellphone dings ]

I just actually got a text,
got the address.

So basically, you have
to be on this list,

and you get a text
giving you the whereabouts

and the dates of where
this game's gonna be?

It's usually the day of.

It's hard to hit
a moving target.

I'm a virgin
to this world.

Tell me, what am I gonna
walk into right now?

I think it's better if we just
see it and experience it.

These are New York OGs.

These are not, like,
amateurs.

So, bro,
do I need to get frisked?

You already know.
I'm a team player.

-Okay, my brother, I'm with you.
-Third floor.

[ Door closes ]
[ Footstep echoing ]

It's a thin line between
crime and entertainment.

[ "Hundred Dolla Girlz"
by Richard Charnock playing ]

-What's up, bro?
-What up, homie?

Michael: What do you got going
on here tonight?

What game is this?
Blackjack? I need in.

Michael: It was legal for me
to gamble in those rooms.

Hell, yeah.

What's the --
what's the minimum for the game?

$20?
All right.

And what makes
these games illegal

is not the fact that people
are losing their homes

and their families
and their kids' college tuitions

on some of these tables.

-What you doing, son?
-Hit me.

Michael:
What makes these games illegal

is when the house takes the cut.

They call it a rake.

Hit me.

I'm busted.

The house always wins.

It's just like Vegas.

We re in the business of
pleasure.

Gamblin is pleasurable.

Women are certainly
pleasurable.

So we, as entrepreneurs,
said, "Let's put 'em
all together."

You know, vice is vice, man.

That s in our natures.

Yeah, I'm putting $20, bro.
I'm feeling lucky.

I feel
that Brooklyn love.

Baby, I'm feeling
lucky tonight.

Nah!
Oh!

What did I tell you?
I'm feeling lucky tonight!

♪♪

Michael:
Everybody's in their own world

and having fun,
and it was safe.

Not one argument,
not one shove, nothing.

It was just pure love.

But make no mistake,

that party could have
easily gone the other way.

Where there's darkness,
there's danger.

America's full of gamblers.

Almost half the nation places

some kind of bet
at least once a year.

I mean, there's casinos
all over this country,

regulated and taxed.

But there's another side
to this gambling world.

Right now,
we're at a poker game,

an illegal poker game
right here in New York City.

Man: $25 is the bet.
It's $20 more.

I'm gonna watch
a little bit, yeah.

We're playing 2-5,
no limit.

Whatever's in front
of you is in play,

so at any minute...

-It could happen?
-It could be gone.

[ Laughter ]

What I don't understand is,

what is the excitement
with the illegal thing?

Why not just go to Vegas and --
-It's New York, man.

Money here, finance.
-There's a lot of money.

Michael: There used to be clubs
like this all over the city.

Some spots had up to,
like, 20 tables.

When the game
got robbed in 2007,

that changed the New York
scene forever.

A shooting at an illegal
gambling site in Manhattan

leaves a 55-year-old man dead.

Michael:
I caught up with this dude,

Robert Hanley,
old-school New York.

He was playing at that game.

Boom!
I hear the gunshot.

Then I see a guy
laying on the floor,

bleeding pretty bad
on the ground.

So, I actually stuck
my fingers in his back

and grabbed the artery.

He lasted, I'd say,
a minute and a half or so,

then he passed away
right in my arms.

One of the guys
that worked there says,

"Why don't you take him
to the alley and throw him

out by the garbage

so they won't find
his body in here?"

This is while
the man's still alive.

I told him, "If you don't get
the...out of here,

your body's gonna be
behind a garbage can."

What kind of humanity
is there?

He's thinking about money
in his pocket.

How does that incident
change the game for you

or for the game itself
in general?

That place
had ten tables.

There will never be another
ten-table place ever again.

[ Buzzer sounds ]

When the games are too big,
police started to raid them.

It was too much money
going on in there.

Nowadays, the games
are a lot smaller,

but one thing's for certain,
two things for sure.

Those rooms are lawless.

♪♪

Stephen: There's a game running
in New York City,

in some way 24 hours a day,
7 days a week.

There's multibillionaires
sitting in certain games.

There's drug addicts,

struggling to make 20 bucks
playing in others.

How much money does
that say?

I don't know.
I don't know.

I'm bad with numbers.
[ Laughs ]

You ain't that bad.

There's actual people
that travel around.

They call them grinders,

and they go to all these
different clubs,

and they grind it out.

Whales are people that
are invited to these games

that have a ton of money

and don't know
anything about poker.

And they go
and they spend $60,000,

$70,000, $80,000,
and they lose it all.

If you're a player, technically,
by New York state law,

players are not considered
doing anything illegal.

Michael: The men and women
we see at that table,

they're just
basically customers.

But now in here,
this brother in here

is who the police
are gonna want to get after.

This dude runs games
all over the city.

This one just happens to be
in the back of a pizza shop.

[ Cellphone rings ]

And don't have shit
to show for it.

Michael: Fantastic.
That ain't gonna hurt.

I don't know
what the...I'm doing.

Man:
There's faces in there?

Oh, I don't know.
Is there?

A gambler, you'll bet
on anything,

but the guy
who cheats, you know,

that's a different mind-set.

See, the cheater,
he's got a system.

He doesn't leave
anything to chance.

[ Card shuffling ]

Michael:
If you make money gambling,
and you don't report it,

you're basically
cheating the government.

That's where the problem is.

And if you cheat,
you know how they go.

The IRS will pounce on you,

and you're gonna need
a lawyer like Ed Hayes.

-=Hey, what's happening?
-What up?

-How you doing?
-I'm good. That's it.

Michael: Quintessential,
classy, New York.

This is beautiful.
That's for you, man.
I'm telling you.

I think I need
a topcoat in this.

Yeah, yeah,
with a velvet collar,

maybe a black velvet collar
or navy blue or green?

Oh, man.

That, as we say, is clean.

We got to talk.
[ Laughter ]

I understand
you also know a little bit

about protecting gamblers.
-Yeah.

How much time can a person get
for running a gambling ring?

Three years, five years
is really a lot for gambling.

What you get the time for is
laundering the money, all right?

If it's part of --
-Tax evasion.

Yeah, tax evasion.

When you have really
a lot of cash,

you have to find ways of
smuggling it out of the country.

It's tough.

-Wow.
-Take a look.

This is a hybrid between
a sport coat and an overcoat.

-Oh, man, that looks beautiful.
-This is dope.

This is dope,
let's get fitted.

$3 million
would be way too much

to try to --
-Look, you can launder it.

You just need the right people
to handle it for you.

And you always take a risk
'cause the guys

that are doing it for you might
get locked up, too.

Or -- or run off.
Well, then they'd --
you'd kill them.

Yeah, yeah.
You know,
or kill somebody they know.

So, for that kind of money,
somebody gets killed.

First rule of criminality is,
beat people out of money,

somebody's gonna get hurt.

It's the guys that
never want to quit,

that always want
to make another score

that end up doing
life in prison.

You pick a life of crime,
it's risky.

Some people say,
you die in prison,

or you die in the street.

It's the choice
that you make.

Yeah.

Michael: So, right now,
we -- we in Brooklyn.

We're gonna meet
a man named Chummy

who used to run
a very lucrative poker game.

What's going on?
How's it going?
Hey. Respect.

I've been involved in this
for about 15 years.
Okay.

You know, give or take.
I knew the owners here.

I said, "Let me do a game
in the basement."

We worked out percentages.
He said, "Do it."

-Let's take a look at the spot.
-Absolutely.

So this is where
the magic happens, huh?

I mean, it looks
pretty gritty down here,

and the truth is,
even back then,

it was pretty gritty.

But, uh,
the most important thing

is the money on the tables,
so...

guys will play...anywhere.

Is it just
the thrill of winning,

or is it the thrill
of knowing

that you could flip money
really quick?

All of it?
All of it. All of it,
and it is an ego thing, too.

-Oh.
-Gamblers have big egos.

When you win,
you feel like a...genius.

Yeah, yeah.
You feel like
a...genius when you win.

On the flip side,
when you lose,

you hate yourself
so much.

There's no in between because
a real degenerate gambler

doesn't want to win
a little.

He either wants to win
a lot or lose a lot.

Most of these guys would rather
lose a lot than win a little.

-You ever got robbed?
-This place never got robbed.

We kept it
discreet enough.

Some of the other places
got robbed by --

-What was that like?
-I was dealing.

There were
ten tables full.

Two guys came in with guns,
kicked the door open.

Like, "Everyone on the floor,
everyone empty your own shit."
Yeah, yeah.

Everyone, run your shit.
Put it on the table.

A bunch of guys put up jewelry,
shit like that.

They got the cage --
I believe that night,

they got the cage
for over $100,000.

With all the players, you know,
one guy was getting the cage

while the other guy
was going table to table.

Everyone, you know,
put their shit on the table.
Jewelry and what have you.

Me, I was having a bad week
that week, and I was dealing.

I needed my...money.
I had like maybe $500 on me.

I took it out of my pocket,
I put it in my drawers.

I dig it.
And then I just threw
my wallet on the table.

I had $8 in my wallet.

The guy actually
looked at my wallet.

He said, "$8, mother...?"
-Yeah.

But he didn't run
my drawers or nothing, so...

-No, yeah, yeah, yeah.
-I left with $500 that night.

♪♪

Most of the time,
it's an inside job.

Michael:
Right now, we are in Brooklyn.

We're about to meet
a couple of dudes that --

they rob poker games.

Michael: Why do you only
target illegal games?

What is your main -- what --
what is the science behind that?

Yes, sir.

What's the biggest
lick you ever caught?

One game, one poker game,
just wanted their cash, and --

$140,000?

-Yeah.
-Yeah.

I mean, for what,
for 5 minutes of work?
Yeah.

Like -- like, how do --
how do you sort out the games

that you think
are easy prey?

I mean, the reality is
none of them are easy prey.

How many games
have you robbed?

Mm-hmm.

-How much money?
-Hood money.

Yes, sir.

Have you shot someone
in a robbery?

[ Indistinct conversation ]

Michael: So when
you're a degenerate gambler,

nothing is sacred.

Man:
You want another $500?

-I got it.
-Let's do it.

My boy needs a rebuy.

I might as well
give this money away.

I fold. I fold.
Fold. Hey.

Michael:
When it gets to that point,
you know, you're an addict.

That's the equivalent of someone

who can't control
their drug habit.

$900 to a stack,
it goes quick.

I could have easily
sat there another however --

for however long it would have
taken for me to blow all of that

because the game
is so much fun.

You get very
easily sucked in.

What's up, brother?

Chummy
is a degenerate gambler.

So, what's this?

So, this used to be
the Genoa Club, actually.

The entrance
was right here.

There's an old saying --s
one is too many,

and a thousand
is never enough.

And if you know
what I'm talking about,

you know what I'm talking about.

Running your games, were you
also participating in them?

Yeah, and that's always
been a problem of mine.

What's the old saying?

Never get high on
your own supply, huh?

Never get high on
your own supply.

-And with gambling, the chips --
-Shout out to Biggie.

The chips are the supply.

Gambling is certainly
an addiction,

and most people --
it's hard to beat,

because it's not
an outside chemical

or an outside agent that
you're putting in your body.

It's already in you,
and --

and it's just triggers
to get it out of you.

It's just anything from just
seeing a deck of cards

to seeing poker on TV
to seeing sports

and just wanting
to gamble on it.

You have money in your pocket,
that's a trigger in itself.

Just give me, like, one play.

I can't even put anything in.
I just want to see if it hits.

I mean, I don't have
any concept of... --

you know, you don't think
I'm a little --

I used to make all sorts
of...crazy money,

all sorts
of...whatever.

I was -- I was a figure
around that world.

At a certain point, I had
to realize I can't handle it.

Other people might be
able to handle it.

Other people might be
able to control it.

I'm not one
of those people.

I am powerless
over my addiction.
Yes, sir.

You have to come
to that realization.
Mm-hmm.

And it's been
a few months now.

I take it day by day.
That's just all it is.

-I can -- I can relate to that.
-You know?

Over my career, I've probably
lost over $2 million.

My last 100 bucks that I ever
lost was more painful

than, like, losing a couple
hundred thousand.

Because when you hit zero,
it becomes reality.

And then when it's just,
you can't borrow anymore...

...y-your reputation goes
to shit.

You lost a lot
of friends.

A lot of family
won't talk to you.

I know that
I didn't gamble today.
Yeah.

I don't know
what's gonna happen tomorrow.
Tomorrow.

Being, um -- being someone
w-who is a recovering addict,

I can definitely relate
to, you know, owing money

to different various dealers

and losing the respect
and the trust of my family.

You know --
you know what they say,

you know,
by us telling our story,

maybe someone will hear this
and not make

the same stupid mistakes
that you and I made.

So, you know,
that's what it's all about,

you know what I mean?
-Yeah.

It makes me realize that,
you know,

there's a lot of addicts
running around New York, man.

A lot --
a lot of gambling addicts.

It's a lot of, you know,
venues that feed that need.

Those rooms can become portals
to the dark side very quickly.

They're dangerous.

You know, it's lawless --
wild, wild west.

This country is kind of like --
it's built on that, isn't it?

You know?
Yeah.

[ Laughs ]
It's in the DNA.

Speakeasy, the back door,

you know, the -- you know,
I got a little secret.

Don't tell nobody.
[ Imitates whispers ]

We all like that shit.
You know what I mean?

But, uh, you got to be careful
because, you know,

unfortunately,
that's -- that's --

where there's darkness,
there's danger.

♪♪