Pittsburgh Steelers Poker Suit

February 5, 2009

They might be going to the Super Bowl but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t exempt from scandal. It appears that the owners of the Pittsburgh Steelers are being sued in reference to poker tips that may nor may not have been paid out correctly. The lawsuit comes just in time for their biggest game of the year.

The owners of the football team, the Rooney family, have owned the Pittsburgh Steelers for decades as well as a combination greyhound racetrack and poker room on West Palm Beach, Florida. The poker room/track is called the West Palm Beach Kennel Club. The poker room and several other interests were under fire a few years ago because according to the National Football League you could not own gambling interests as well as a football team. These moves then lead to the splitting of the ownership of the team.

Now it would seem that they are under fire for the way that the payouts were made from the poker tables. They are being sued in federal court by twenty of their former and one current poker dealers from the room over the way that the tips were paid out. They allege that the Rooney’s did not distribute their poker tips properly and they are owed thousands of dollars in back pay.

They say that the poker club gave money to other poker room employees who should not have gotten a portion of their pay. The attorneys for the poker club say that the Rooneys distributed the tips following Federal Law and industry standards and that they are accused unjustly. According to law if you are paid tips the employer does not have to pay you minimum wage – which the poker club did not. This is not their problem, instead it is the 5% that they had to pay out to the tip pool for the other employees in the room.