Man Arrested After Holding Up Poker Player at Gunpoint

A man has been arrested after robbing a poker player who had just left a South Florida casino.  Alejandro Eugenio Arguello, 35, of Plantation, was arrested two weeks ago on one count of armed robbery, an arrest report said.

The problem is management failed to inform loyal poker players of the brazen crime, which took place on April 5.  Instead, they had to read about this month's arrest on a local news website.

The Casino at Dania Beach is located in the city of the same name, just outside of the Fort Lauderdale International Airport and nearby Hollywood.

The unnamed victim had just won a high stakes poker game and drove off in his Land Rover back to his Miami Gardens apartment, some 20 minutes south of the casino.  The suspect followed the player in his Ford Escape and accosted him in the elevator then demanded his bag of money.

In the bag were around $50,000 worth of poker chips and five checks written to the victim which totaled around $78,000, the local NBC affiliated reported.

"A lot of my buddies play poker at Dania Beach and they are very pissed that management didn't say a word about the robbery as they all found out about it on the news," one Gambling911.com reader tells us. 

Detectives learned the Escape had been rented out to Arguello on March 21 and was supposed to be returned on April 10, the report said.

Arguello's cell phone data also showed his phone was at the casino and at the victim's apartment bulding the night of the robbery, the report said.

This information allowed police to make an arrest.

Arguello turned himself in to police and faces additional charges including aggravated battery with a weapon.

- Jagajeet Chiba, Gaambling911.com