'Poker princess' indicted for role in alleged gambling scheme

Molly Bloom, who organized high-stakes poker games in the L.A. area that allegedly involved Leonard Dicaprio, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Macaulay Culkin, and Alex Rodriguez, was among those charged today with operating an illegal gambling business - part of a massive investigation into a gambling and money laundering scheme that had been orchestrated by a Russian organized crime group. Here's the indictment. At the center of the international operation is Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov, who prosecutors describe as a made member of a Russian organized-crime gang. Bloom, sometimes dubbed the "Poker Princess," was hardly a ringleader, but she's likely to get some attention as the government's case is laid out. Not much detail in the indictment, though in previous comments Bloom, who is 34, claimed to have "reigned supreme" over the secret world of underground poker. Well, at least until things fell apart when hedge fund manager Brad Ruderman was implicated for bilking investors out of $25 million, much of that to cover his gambling debts. Ruderman, who wound up with a 10-year prison sentence, provided some details last year about the games. From Vulture:

It all started back in 2006, when Ruderman was walking along Carbon Beach and ran into Rick Salomon, he of "One Night in Paris" sex tape fame, who was throwing a party. There he met then-33-year-old Molly Bloom, a cute brunette and the point-person-cum-clearing-agent for the high-stakes underground poker circuit. Not long after, he got a call from who else but Spider-Man himself, Tobey Maguire. "Hey, we have this game," he told Ruderman. "Would you like to play?" Soon, he was receiving exclusive text invites from Bloom for games at The Four Seasons or Beverly Hills Hotel, where bodyguards in bulletproof vests were the norm, as were secret passwords and "friendly, attractive girls" serving drinks and performing the occasional shoulder massage. As for the poker, there was no limit, so the pot could reach into the hundreds of thousands, Ruderman told FBI agents -- he once saw it hit $950,000, but was not personally staked in it. Bloom was always nearby, keeping track of players' losses and wins in a computer, and diligently sending around couriers a few days later to settle everyone's accounts. Ruderman became known as a man who always paid his debts -- although with other peoples' money, it later turned out -- but that's not the only reason he became such a fixture. "He was easy to take advantage of," said one of the game's big winners. "Ruderman was one of the biggest losers in the game. For the core group of players, having someone with deep pockets and no poker skills was a dream come true." Eventually Ruderman's losses spiraled out of control and he stole more than $5.2 million from his clients to pay off his card-carousing debts.