Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast
Hidden World of Illegal Gambling | Paul Schiffbauer Tells All
Fri, 23 May 2025
Inside look into Baltimore's Illegal Gambling Operations. Pauls Book https://www.amazon.com/Amusement-Only-Paul-Schiffbauer/dp/1543911072Pauls Page https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-Ye3zVSq7L225BOeXxxBkQFollow me on all socials!Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/insidetruecrime/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@mattcoxinsidetruecrimeDo you want to be a guest? Fill out the form https://forms.gle/5H7FnhvMHKtUnq7k7Send me an email here: [email protected] you want a custom "con man" painting to shown up at your doorstep every month? Subscribe to my Patreon: https: //www.patreon.com/insidetruecrimeDo you want a custom painting done by me? Check out my Etsy Store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/coxpopartListen to my True Crime Podcasts anywhere: https://anchor.fm/mattcox Check out my true crime books! Shark in the Housing Pool: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0851KBYCFBent: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BV4GC7TMIt's Insanity: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08KFYXKK8Devil Exposed: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TH1WT5GDevil Exposed (The Abridgment): https://www.amazon.com/dp/1070682438The Program: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0858W4G3KBailout: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/bailout-matthew-cox/1142275402Dude, Where's My Hand-Grenade?: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BXNFHBDF/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1678623676&sr=1-1Checkout my disturbingly twisted satiric novel!Stranger Danger: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BSWQP3WXIf you would like to support me directly, I accept donations here:Paypal: https://www.paypal.me/MattCox69Cashapp: $coxcon69
Chapter 1: What happens when illegal gambling operations are raided?
If they get caught, they take all the heat. The cops come in. They take every dime into place. They take every penny out of the machine. We get this call. She said, we got hit. The police are there. You have 15 minutes to get down there. They're breaking open the machines.
That's the problem with getting away with behaving like that for so long. You start thinking you're invincible.
They're like, OK, we need 30,000. Hey, you know, that has nothing to do with me. That's no, no, no, no. You don't understand. We're collecting 35 today. I had my shock and I cocked it. And he's like, what are you going to do? Take one more step and you're going to find out. These things were always classified as arcade games, amusement only devices. Right.
But we use them for illegal gambling, racketeering, you know? So what for years protected us was on the machine. It said for amusement only.
nod nod wink wink but you know we had the outfit i worked for was my brother-in-law's company uh we had like 50 50 55 to 60 bars but they go up and down you lose accounts you gain accounts and um you put them in these you know put them in the bars restaurants little convenience stores you know and they uh they use them basically for gambling you know and if they get caught you know the thing with what protects us is you know if they get caught
they take all the heat, you know, the cops come in, they take every dime into place. They take every penny out of the machine. They take any money you have behind the counter, any, anything that are safe, they take it all. They clean you out and they take the boards out of the, sometimes they smash the heck out of these machines with sledgehammers.
But sometimes they say, you know, we'll give you 15 minutes to come down here and open them up. So, you know, if they open the machines up, you know, we'll go down there, we'll, we'll put a board in there and it'll be up and running. But sometimes, How this works is how we protect them is that they get ready, they take the heat.
So if they take, you know, $3,000 out of the poker machine, you know, they would have got half of that 1500. So we'll come down there. The cops will leave them a ticket, $3,000. We'll give them 1500 of it. They're whole now. We ate the 1500. If they had a $2,000 in the safe, we give them $2,000. They're covered. And then, well, they go, we'll have this, we have this thing. We have to go to court.
Here's your attorney. Here's a card. This is your attorney. We're paying for them. Any court calls, missed work, anybody got to – we pay for everything.
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Chapter 2: How did Paul Schiffbauer become involved in illegal gambling?
But then I realized, yeah, I'm doing enough because he's put me in bad spots, you know, you know, where, where I could, you know, somebody could shoot me or stab me or, or, or come at me.
What happened to the, what happened to law enforcement?
Well, that's, that was, I was, I was hooked. I mean, I mean, I was hooked. I mean, but after, so we go to this gambling parlor, right. And I, I said, I gotta go at five o'clock in the morning. So Roland dropped me off my car, go home. My wife gave you some shit. Uh, you know, I'm like, Hey, it's part of the job. You know, he called me sick.
Thank God there was no set. Would you have a cell phone?
No cell phones.
Nice.
No, there was no cell phones.
So you didn't have to hear anything until you got home.
No, no, until I got home. Until I got home. Of course, she was never up, but she heard everything. Oh, what time did you get home? Oh, it was five. So she knew everything. So I laid my head down. He calls me at six, and he's on the house phone. I'm like, what's up? He goes, brother, you got to do my route, man. You got to go run my route. I'm over here still. I said, that's all right, man.
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Chapter 4: How does the illegal gambling operation manage payouts?
I said, if I come in here again and that back door is open like that, I said, there's going to be some problems in this place. Oh, yeah, man. He's all hot. And he wasn't getting what I was saying. So I grabbed him and I shoved him against the wall. And his imprint of his shoulders and head were in the wall. I mean, it wasn't like drywall. It was like this thin wood grain.
It kind of shook him a little. And I said, I mean it, man. I said, we've got $100,000 invested in this business, your business. and you're, you're, you got that door open and there's prostitutes and there's coke in here. I said, you know, we're making five, we're making five to 10 grand a week. And so is he, you know, plus we're getting our note back from, if we're getting another five grand.
So we're doing pretty good from one spot, you know? Right. But I said, you're not going to F it up for us, you know? And, uh, don't tell Sonny. I was like, yeah, I'm going to tell Sonny, man, this is bull. You know, I'm not dealing with this shit because it happened a couple of times. So when I tell Sonny this, he's like, I got an idea. We're going to, because we're going to put you in there.
I'm like, dude, I'd love to own a bar one day, but I'm not getting involved with Richie, man. Something bad's bound to happen. He's like, that's a problem. You can keep control of it. I said, I'm not dealing with that shit. I don't need that. It's not me. I'm not doing that. He goes, well, we'll figure this out. A couple of weeks went by and he heard about it. He didn't like me because
I shoved him around, slapped him around one night, told him, I'm not tolerating this shit. He finds this guy. This guy named Paul Monk started hanging in there. He had an insurance company. And we checked them out and all. And he actually had a pretty good idea because we're making so much money in this one joint.
We're only allowed to have three poker machines back there because certain sizes of bars, you can only limit one, depending on the size, two. This place, we can only have three. So we had guys there lined up waiting to play. People are playing. They're waiting to give us money. Here's a bucket. Just throw your money in the bucket. So we had a brilliant idea.
They went to buy this bar down the street. It was for sale. It was about a mile away. And they said, Hey, we can put two machines in there and we'll run an after hours joint down there too. You know, that was Paul Monk's idea. And he, and he had a little bit of money. So he approached me and Sonny about it. And, uh, And, you know, we're thinking, okay, you know, and Ira too.
But Ira was always – Sonny ran the show. Ira was like an afterthought. That's what we're doing, Ira, you know.
Is that to run the other guy out of business?
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