Pasco Sheriff’s Lt. Robert Sullivan sees offenders everywhere.

Poker tournament to raise money for Alzheimer’s support centers. Casino night to help a civic group. Church holding 50/50 raffle.

The county’s longtime vice cop has a reliable intelligence network for finding illegal gambling operations: newspaper ads.

“There’s not even an attempt to mask it,” Sullivan said last week during a Gambling 101 session of sorts with local media outlets.

He’s on a mission to put a stop to widespread illegal gambling, which he says is often committed by people unaware they’re breaking state law.

Frequently, the violators are nonprofit groups raising dollars for worthy causes. “I don’t know if people just figure, well, we’re giving this to charity so it’s okay,” he said.

But he suspects that’s the case.

“We want to spread the word on what is gambling,” he said. “We just want people to be knowledgeable of the law.”

And the law defining gambling, according to Sullivan, establishes three critical elements:

- Participants have to pay to play.

- The game is primarily one of chance, not skill.

- There’s a prize at the end.

There are events like Las Vegas Night, where companies are hired to bring in slot machines, blackjack tables, roulette wheels and dealers for a party.

But playing the games is gambling, Sullivan said, and beyond that, the equipment is illegal to possess.

Other common violations he sees are poker tournaments, often held in bars, and 50/50 drawings – contests where participants buy tickets, and at the end a winner is drawn who collects half the proceeds. The other half goes to the cause.

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Author Contact Info: Molly Moorhead, St. Petersburg Times