Before the sun came up Wednesday, Bexar County sheriff's deputies hit seven suspected illegal gambling operations scattered across San Antonio, walking away with an estimated 500 to 600 gaming machines and roughly 23 people detained. Sheriff Javier Salazar said about 13 of those detained were expected to end up in jail, facing charges that could include felony drug offenses, outstanding misdemeanor warrants, keeping a gambling place, and engaging in organized criminal activity.
The coordinated sweep, carried out by the Bexar County Sheriff's Office Organized Crime Unit, targeted locations spread across the city: the 6400 block of Callaghan Road, the 8800 block of Broadway, the 3200 block of Wurzbach Road, the 1300 block of Clower, the 9200 block of Culebra Road, and the 1900 block of Dollarhide, according to WOAI. Salazar said the seven businesses were believed to be working together as part of a single organized criminal operation rather than operating independently.
Cards, Pellets and a Cash-Out Scheme
Investigators say several of the raided businesses operated under the name “777,” and they had already linked a previously raided 777 location on Hildebrand Avenue near San Pedro Avenue to Wednesday's operation. The station's report also detailed an elaborate workaround some of the businesses allegedly used to turn gambling winnings into cash without directly paying out at the machines themselves.
At some locations, winners were awarded Pokémon cards or sports trading cards instead of money, which could then be carried to a neighboring business and exchanged for cash. Salazar described one setup where a gambling operation and the card-buying business sat behind separate doors right next to each other. Other establishments issued silver pellets equal in value to a customer's winnings, which could likewise be exchanged for cash at a connected location.
A Suspected Hub and a Disrupted Cash Run
Investigators believe one of the seven raided locations functioned as the central hub for the rest of the operation. Deputies reportedly found a large sum of money there that Salazar believed was meant to be distributed to the other gambling sites later in the day — a plan the early-morning raids appear to have interrupted before it could unfold. Some of the targeted businesses were already closed by the time investigators arrived, and many of the machines inside were found empty.
Deputies also turned up suspected drug activity during the sweep. At the Broadway location, Salazar said two women were found carrying felony amounts of narcotics — one allegedly had crystal methamphetamine, while the other allegedly had both crystal methamphetamine and heroin, per the same account.
Why Deputies Say These Busts Matter
Salazar connected illegal gambling operations to broader public-safety risks beyond the games themselves, saying such businesses have been linked to gang violence and robberies. He also warned that illegal electrical hookups used to run banks of machines can create fire hazards, and that customers caught gambling at these establishments can face citations of their own.
The sheriff said many of the customers at these operations are elderly people living on fixed incomes, and he cautioned that players generally lose money over time. He called Wednesday's coordinated raids a major success, and said deputies were still calculating the final number of arrests, machines seized, and money recovered as the investigation continued. Salazar added that deputies will keep targeting these businesses whenever they reopen.
Part of a Longer Pattern in Bexar County
Wednesday's operation is the latest in a string of gambling busts across the county over roughly the past year. In March, deputies raided a South Side property and found about 50 working gaming machines at the same East Harding Boulevard location authorities had already busted in 2022, when they seized more than $30,000 and roughly 100 machines, according to KSAT. In April, a separate raid on a North Side operation at 443 West Hildebrand Avenue turned up 50 gambling machines, with three people arrested and eight others cited, KSAT reported.
Back in August 2025, deputies detained 18 players and four employees at a location called Royal Room 777 in southeast Bexar County, in a bust that also involved cash-out schemes using tokens redeemed at a separate location and beads sold by a nearby store. And in 2021, Salazar described a raid on Blanco Road as the largest illegal gambling operation ever uncovered in the county, with more than 100 machines, $130,000 in cash, seven guns and narcotics seized at the time, WOAI reported. Another West Side raid turned up a smaller haul of 44 machines and $19,000 in cash, the station noted, underscoring just how widely the scale of these operations can vary from one bust to the next.
