In the early morning hours of Wednesday, May 7, Jackson County social media was abuzz with news of The Shack Bar & Grill being raided the previous night.
According to a post on the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office Facebook page by Sheriff Rick Boone “on Tuesday, May 6, 2025, the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office, with assistance from the Jackson County District Attorney’s Office, the Texas Department of Public Safety, the Edna Police Department, and Jackson County Constable Joel Price, they executed a response to reports of illegal gambling at The Shack Bar and Grill in LaSalle.”
The game Queen of Hearts was the reason for the raid, in which participants paid $5 to purchase a ticket for a chance to draw a card from a wall, with the winner being the one who picks the queen of heart card.
Each week the card wasn’t chosen the money would move over and be added to the pot the next week a name was chosen to choose a card.
As the jackpot grew, so did participation, with people coming from more than 100 miles to join the game. The crowds grew to around 1,000 people when the bust happened, and the jackpot was nearly $255,000.
The post explained under Chapter 47 of the Texas Penal Code, gambling is a criminal offense. While event organizers were not directly profiting from the prize pot, the business experienced a substantial increase in revenue through food and beverage sales generated by the surge in attendance.
A GoFundMe and various merchandise ideas then popped up in the county to help raise defense fees for Willie and Kim Chandler, the owners of the bar.
The Chandlers declined to comment.
“At this time I am unable to comment, as the case is still being investigated,” Boone said.
Many filled Facebook with questions regarding the legality of the bust.
“The thing about the Queen of Hearts game that was happening at The Shack,” Assistant Criminal Defense Attorney Stephen Tyler said, “I want you to imagine a payoff. This area of Texas has had a rash of people who’ve been followed home after going to an ATM. What do you think would happen if someone was going home with a bag of money?”
With the amount of the jackpot surpassing a quarter of a million dollars, the winner would surely draw a lot of attention.
“When most people go to the ATM, they get $25,” Tyler continued. “They don’t go home with $250,000. Even if you make it to your house, that is big enough to attract some organized crime. I don’t mean mafiosos, but a gang of five or more who may shoot up your house and do a home invasion because you have made it very profitable. So it’s dangerous for The Shack because they have to retain the money at home, or at The Shack, or somewhere. Plus they have to transport it. You notice they’ve never contracted with an armored vehicle service. What they’ve done is contracted with the Sheriff’s office, and not always with full disclosure. So how much risk involved is probably more than everybody bought off on.”
Tyler saying ‘contracted with the Sheriff’s office’ also addresses another question a large chunk of the community has been asking.
“This is a small county,” he continued. “We have very limited jail space. There were about 1,000 people playing the game, so technically, every person playing was breaking the law, but I don’t think we could possibly transport or incarcerate all of them.”
But what about the deputies who were present while the drawing was going on?
“You’re not a party to an offense by merely being present,” Tyler continued. “You have to facilitate and engage in that activity. What responsibility do the deputies who were there have? It depends. Were they providing security or were they drinking liquor or playing the game? Participants in the game did break the law but that doesn’t mean they will get charged.”
People also asked why the bust didn’t happen sooner, and why the pot was allowed to grow so large before the bust happened.
“Why did they let it go so long,” Tyler asked rhetorically. “I would like to know everything but I don’t know everything. Stuff goes on everywhere that I don’t know about but as soon as I learn about it, I try to do the right thing. That’s the same with the Sheriff and the D.A. When they learned about what was going on, and it became obvious to the law, they reacted within a week. I know the gambling had been going on for 44 weeks.
“A reserve officer heard about it at a softball game,” Tyler continued. “He called me in the morning and explained it to me and I told him it was gambling. So I talked to Pam Guenther, the District Attorney. That day, we talked to the Sheriff and then we sent in (an undercover officer) for observations. We recorded those observations, and we took an affidavit to a neutral judge out of Victoria and got the search and arrest warrant. So we did it in less than a week. That is learning of it, investigating it, and coming up with the warrant, so it was relatively quick.”
What harm could have come from letting it continue?
“If we let it go on, what if there was a big shooting there and five or six people got killed, then everyone would be saying they wish law enforcement had been more proactive to protect us. But when we do that, people ask why we don’t go after real crime,” Tyler said.
Bingo and the Texas Lottery were also questioned, and Tyler talked about those as well.
“Bingo has separate laws and quite a bit of regulation, and it is controlled,” he explained. “People ask why does the state do a lottery? State Legislatures wrote that into law. They aren’t breaking the law and all of the money is supposed to go to education in Texas.”
Lastly, Tyler talked about the concerns with the amount of people being inside The Shack.
“You have a building that is, what, 1,500 square feet with about 1,000 people inside,” Tyler questioned.. “That is a hazard. Maybe someone rightly or wrongly thinks there is cheating going on, and especially when you mix that with alcohol, what might happen? Historically in Texas, when people begin to feel like they’ve been cheated in a game, they become violent, and sometimes deadly violent. In a very crowded room, that’s a recipe for a disaster. Not only that, there could be a fire, or a number of other things.”
The Chandlers were charged with Engaging in Organized Criminal Activity, a state jail felony; Keeping a Gambling Place, Gambling Promotion, communication Gambling Information, and Possession of Gambling Device/Equipment/ Paraphania, all class A misdemeanors.
They have both bonded out of the Jackson County Jail. The Shack Bar & Grill reopened on Wednesday, May 7.
