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TIFU by accidentally adding the police to a private WhatsApp group for private poker nights / sports betting events.

So Poker is highly regulated here in Belgium, so is being a bookie. Yet for the past I don't know how many years I (first with some friends, now alone) have been organizing some private poker nights and have ran a private sports betting competition. This sounds like a big deal, but in reality it isn't. None of the proceeds go to me, nor is there a rake during the poker nights.

Problem is: these poker nights happen in 2 pubs after hours when they are closed, both pub owners are really good mates of me. So technically the pubs might be violating the law even though people bring their own booze (some will bring a bottle of Wodka, some a crate of beer, etc ...), pub owners don't actually sell anything during those nights (technically, in practice they sometimes just serve at their cost). The buy-in is also limited to €25 euro (no rebuy), so they are basically soft home games, just taking place in a pub behind closed doors. And everyone knows each other.

Most of these people are also participating in a football (soccer) betting competition. It's €2.5 per week, and we have both a monthly winner and a yearly one. Again, organizer takes no cut and it's been a long tradition, where most people know each other. This has been going on for 27 years.

Communication happens within 2 WhatsApp groups, and there is a small website where people can place their bets (no online payment). A while back I cleaned up both of the WhatsApp groups, deleted some members (a few older folks who passed away 10y ago were still in it) and added some new people who I hadn't added yet (new or they just changed phone numbers).

Couple of years ago I saved the number of a cop in the contactlist of my phone (reason why is irrelevant to the story) and I had actually forgotten about him. Of course he has a very common name, very similar to someone I wanted to add to the groups. Except the one I wanted to add was saved in my contacts as First Name / Last Name, and cop as Last Name + First Name. Long story short, I mistakenly added the cop who can now read all messages and knows what's going on.

And as you might have guessed the cops showed up to one of the poker nights, where I wasn't present (nothing dramatic, just knock on the door and made a report). And they launched an investigation into the sports betting. Some drama ensued among the members and I basically had to reassure everyone, which took a lot of time and energy.

Fortunately, the investigative judge gave me a slap on the wrist as he concluded there was no monetary gain, dismissing the case but meanwhile warning me to stop doing this or obtain a license (which I obviously won't).

TL;DR: managed to ruin poker games and a betting competition by adding a cop by accident to the WhatsApp groups, who could read everything and launched an investigation.

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