Youth fined Dhs100,000 for gambling on street

Hamza M Sengendo, Staff Reporter

A gambler who carried his table and engaged a police team in a street chase will spend three months in prison and pay a Dhs100,000 fine.

The Asian defendant – a visitor, 20 – prepared a gambling game and invited passersby to participate until patrol officers intervened at around 6pm on Mar.13, the Dubai Criminal Court heard on April 18.

An Emirati corporal said he and his colleagues spotted a crowd near a hotel in Frij Murar. “They were gambling. We approached. They fled. The defendant ran away with the table. He dropped a plastic bag. It contained playing cards and a torch.

“We seized him, frisked him and seized Dhs515. He denied anything to do with preparing a gambling game and claimed he was just ironing clothes at the street.” He will be deported after serving the punishment.

In a recent case, another Asian visitor, 20, caught red-handed managing a gambling game at a street in Nakheel area carried the table as he dashed dodging policemen. The court gave him a similar penalty.

A Yemeni corporal said that on the evening of Jan.22 he and his colleagues were on routine patrol combing the area for lawbreakers when they suspected Asian men spotted crowding around an ironing table.  There was money on the table. The defendant was among men standing beside the table. When the gambling participants saw cops zeroing in on them they dispersed in different directions. The defendant dashed down the street carrying the table.

For fear they would catch up with him, he shoved it under a car and continued running. They chased and pinned him down. Policemen frisked him and seized Dhs400 proceeds. He said someone tasked him with managing the game in reward for Dhs100.

During further interrogations, he revealed that an Asian man had tasked him with standing near the gambling table so he could carry it and run away with it upon being alerted that anti-gambling personnel were coming.