PartyPoker player arrested while playing at home

It was with utter shock that I read that police raided professional poker player Richard Lee's Shavano Park house in San Antonio last week.

According to reports, police suspected his residence as being the "nerve center" of a suspected Internet gambling operation.

Lee, who recently won more than $2.8 million in the 2006 World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, denied operating an Internet gambling Web site but said he was taking part in an online poker tournament on partypoker.com when police arrived.

Last I heard, Lee hadn't been charged with a crime. A money-counting machine, five Lexus cars, plasma screen TVs and a large amount of cash were confiscated by police.

Read about it

Now wait a damn minute...

If the police did their homework on this supposed illegal gambling operation, they'd know that Lee recently won millions playing in Vegas, which would probably mean a couple of new cars, TV's and cash lying around...

All of that doesn't prove that he's an illegal operateur scamming thousands out of their hard-earned cash...

Clearly, there's not enough crime in this country to keep the police service busy. Why pick on people innocently using their OWN money to be entertained online? What's next? Special forces keeping an eye on how much you spend on that ultra-addictive evil - the Home Shopping Network?

"Sorry ma'am, you're under arrest for buying the Lean-mean-thigh-busting-ass-shrinking machine. You've got so many unnecessary products that surely you must be running an illegal home shopping operation...."

Anyway, I'm rambling. It just pisses me off that the law allows people to be arrested in their own homes, simply for playing online.

Ridiculous.