Honolulu police tore through two warehouses sitting on the same Iwaena Street property in Halawa on Tuesday evening, walking away with 39 illegal gaming machines, drug paraphernalia, illegal drugs and more than $22,900 in cash. The search warrants were executed around 5 p.m., marking one of the larger single-property hauls in the department's ongoing campaign against Oahu's underground game room industry.
According to Honolulu Police, the operation was carried out by HPD's Narcotics/Vice Division Gambling Detail with help from the District 3 Crime Reduction Unit, the Forfeiture Detail, the Airport Operations Group, the Specialized Services Division and Emergency Medical Services. Police said all recovered items were submitted into evidence, and that the two warehouses targeted sat on the same property in Halawa.
The Halawa raid landed just days after HPD's Gambling Detail hit an illegal game room on Old Fort Weaver Road in Ewa Beach on August 6, seizing 15 gaming machines and over $2,700 in cash, as detailed by the Honolulu Police Department. Together, the back-to-back busts show a Vice Division that has kept up a steady tempo of raids across the island through the first half of August.
A Strategy Built Around Property Owners, Not Just Players
HPD leadership has been clear that these tactical sweeps are only part of a longer game. Maj. Jerome Pacarro said short-term enforcement operations have been effective in disrupting illegal game rooms, but that they represent just one piece of HPD's broader strategy — one increasingly focused on identifying and holding accountable the people who facilitate, organize and profit from illegal gambling, rather than just confiscating machines.
That approach has produced measurable results. By mid-July, HPD had executed search warrants on 30 illegal game rooms across Oahu for the year, confiscating 451 gaming devices and making four gambling-related arrests, per Hawaii News Now. The city has leaned just as hard on civil enforcement: Honolulu's Department of Planning and Permitting had levied roughly $6.65 million in fines and property liens against landlords tied to alleged game room activity as of July, according to the same reporting.
Fewer Game Rooms, But Still a Booming Underground Market
HPD estimated in early 2026 that around 50 active illegal game rooms remained operational on Oahu, a steep drop from the 150 to 160 locations the department believed were running in 2024, Hawaii Public Radio reported. Even so, the industry's scale remains staggering — Hawaii Department of Law Enforcement Director Mike Lambert estimated in January that roughly $400 million is spent annually at illegal game rooms statewide, the station noted.
The public safety stakes go beyond gambling itself. HPD officials reported in January that illegal drugs turn up in roughly 75% of game room raids across Oahu, a pattern that held true again at Iwaena Street, where police recovered drug paraphernalia and illegal drugs alongside the cash and machines.
Legal Tools Behind the Crackdown
Hawaii law gives prosecutors a serious charge to pursue against operators: promoting gambling in the second degree is a Class C felony under Hawaii Revised Statutes § 712-1222, applying to anyone who knowingly advances or profits from illegal gambling, according to Justia Law. City lawmakers added their own tools last year when Mayor Rick Blangiardi signed Bills 11, 12 and 13 into law, establishing permit requirements for electronic amusement devices, allowing permit denials for gambling-nuisance properties, and authorizing police escorts during landlord inspections, per Aloha State Daily.
HPD's District 5 has also run Operation Follow Through since 2023, coordinating with 17 local, state and federal agencies to slap building, fire and tax code violations on game room properties so they stay shuttered rather than reopening within days of a raid, the department has said. Hawaii remains one of just two states, alongside Utah, with a comprehensive ban on all forms of legal gambling — including lotteries, casinos and sports betting — a prohibition that continues to fuel the underground market authorities are now fighting property by property.
The Halawa bust adds to a run of recent Oahu raids: HPD seized 11 machines in a Kalauokalani Way bust in July, and a Hausten Street search in Moiliʻili turned up 57 machines and over $12,000 in cash the same month. Honolulu Police did not release information on any arrests connected to the Iwaena Street warehouses. The department asks anyone with information on illegal gambling to call its Narcotics/Vice 24-hour hotline at 808-723-3933, or 911 for immediate police service.
