‘Everybody Get Down!’ Josh Arieh On The Time Phil Ivey Raised The Stakes During An Armed Robbery

It’s not every day you walk into a poker room and end up hiding behind a stack of folding chairs while masked gunmen clear out the casino cage. But that’s exactly what happened when Josh Arieh made his first and only trip to Paris.

The Georgia native was fresh off his third-place finish in the 2004 WSOP main event for $2.5 million and traveling the international circuit when he found himself in a tight spot and holding a lot of cash. Incredibly, it wasn’t the first time that Arieh had found himself in the middle of a robbery.

From shooting pool for $2 a game to playing in some of the biggest events in the world, the 2021 WSOP Player of the Year has proven to have an uncanny ability to perform under pressure in big moments.

The 50-year-old pro recently joined the Table 1 Podcast to talk about his unique gambling history. Highlights appear below, or you can watch or listen to the full episode on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, or any podcast app.

Josh Arieh: The WPT had just released their season schedule and there was a tournament at Paris Aviation Club. It was my first trip to Europe playing poker and I went there with my then-wife and my stepdaughter. I busted out of the tournament, and we’re [scheduled to] fly home the next day.

Erick Lindgren was traveling with us as well, so he and I decided we were going to play poker all night. It gets to about 7:30 in the morning and I [told] Erick, “We got to leave.” I had been playing $300-$600 and cashed out, so I had €40,000 in my hand and I’m standing behind Erick. Erick was playing with Barry Greenstein and Phil Ivey, and I don’t remember who else.

Erick says, “Let me play until my blind,” and that’s when I start hearing these dishes break around the corner. So, I peek my head around the corner, and there’s a guy with a machine gun, [wearing] a motorcycle helmet.

Art Parmann: Holy shit!

Justin Young: Whhaaaaaaaaat?

Josh Arieh: And the machine gun is pointed at the porter, who was cleaning up the dishes. He’s yelling shit in French, and I don’t know a word of French.

Art Parmann: Well, he probably wasn’t thanking him for the service.

Josh Arieh: Then somebody yells in English, “Everybody get down, we’re getting robbed!”
The Aviation Club is on the Champs-Elysees, that main road in Paris, and it’s on the second floor. So, there’s only one way in and one way out. I get behind a big stack of chairs because they’re starting to clean up from the tournament. It was down to the final table, and the robbers think that all this money that is being given away at this tournament is there and they’re coming to get it.

So, I’m like in the fetal position behind this stack of folding chairs and all this is going on. I can see the robber filling a pillowcase full of money from the cage. They keep passing money, passing money. And in Europe, they have €500-[denomination] bills, so they’re making a score.

Carlos Mortenson is literally two feet from this, and he’s peeping his head around the corner watching. We called him “amigo” back then. And I was just thinking, ‘amigo, f***ing get away from there!’

Meanwhile, Erick, Greenstein, and Ivey are under the table. They were playing $800-$1,600, and I hear Ivey say, “I’m on for doubles next hand.”

This f***ing guy. We’re in the middle of being robbed. The robber is saying shit in French we don’t know. And all Ivey is thinking about, is when this is over, he’s on doubles in props.

This goes on for, like… It felt like eternity, it was probably two minutes. But they filled this bag full of money and it looked heavy.

They finally leave and it’s really quiet, nobody’s saying a word. And like 30 seconds later they’re back. I’m instantly thinking the police are here, and that this is a hostage situation. I’m looking at the window right behind me and thinking, ‘Do I jump out the window? What the f*** do I do?’

Luckily, they just dropped their keys. The robbers dropped the keys to their scooter. They came in on a scooter! Could you imagine the getaway with a guy… on a scooter with a pillowcase full of money?

But luckily it was over, and everybody was fine. Nobody got hurt. The funniest thing about it was how sharp the people at the casino are. The press release came out… ‘We got robbed, and the robbers got away with €78,000.’

Justin Young: Which can’t be true…

Josh Arieh: Zero chance. Absolutely zero chance. They got away with no less than €1 million. It was insane. But yeah, I haven’t been back to France since. It went away, but for a couple of years I would have PTSD every time I saw somebody on a scooter with a motorcycle helmet.

Justin Young: Got to check them for pillowcases.

Art Parmann: If you were a craps dealer at the Bellagio when the biker bandit came through, then your suspicions would be right.

Justin Young: It was nice that they didn’t go after any of the players, though, and there was a lot of money on the table.

Josh Arieh: I had €40,000 in my hand! In my poker career I’ve been robbed twice and I’m still plus $200. I didn’t lose any money there, and then there was another robbery at home that I got out of. We were playing poker and there was this weird guy that was playing with us. It was like $5-$10 limit mixed games. I think I was 20 years old.

I just got this really weird vibe from this guy. Back then there used to be a thing called the kitty, where, whenever someone wins a pot they throw some in the kitty. And I was doing it as an edge, because he was in every pot.

And so, me and him are kittying, and now it’s time to cash out. I bought it for $200 and I won $400, so I literally had six $100 bills on the table. He comes around the corner with a gun. (spreads his hands apart two feet wide) It wasn’t this big, but it f***ing felt this big.

He comes around the corner and my back is to the hall, and he puts the gun right to my back and he says, “Guys, my wife is in the hospital. I don’t want it all, I just want the money that I’ve lost back.”

The game runner was a guy named JJ, who was just a rotten guy. So, the guy says, “JJ, where’s the house money?” JJ reaches into his pocket and he’s got a bankroll like that. (spreads fingers apart several inches) And the guy says, “Yep, that’s about what I lost,” and takes the whole thing.

I have $600 laying out on the table and the guy says, Josh, how much did you win? And I said, I bought in $200 and I won $400. He said, “You played good, you deserve half of it.” He only took $200 off the table.

Justin Young: I like this guy.

Josh Arieh: He took all of our driver’s licenses. About a week later in the mail, I got my driver’s license back with a photocopy of it and it said, “Don’t look for me. I have friends that play with fire.” That was the exact words.

Fast forward about six months. There’s a shootout at this bar, and it was that guy. He robs a bar in Marietta, which is a suburb of Atlanta, and for some reason stays there for 30 minutes after he robs them. When he goes outside, the police are there waiting for him. He gets in a shootout and they kill him.

But it’s crazy back in those days, having to play underground games [fearing what could happen.] Nowadays, that’s the least of your worries. You’re not going to get robbed at gunpoint anymore, you’re going to get robbed by being cheated, or get arrested, or not paid.

There was this one time in Atlanta… and this never crossed my mind before. I’ve never been invited to many games in Atlanta because they are really soft and filled with very bad players. But I started hearing about this game where guys were losing like $30,000 or $40,000 a night.

So, I work my way in, and I get there. I’m in for $70,000, and I’m all in with a wrap against top set. I win, and end up turning it around and 24 hours later, I’m up $140,000.

You know how the games go when you play for these long sessions, the table gets all messy. The credit pad is over here, and the cash out chips are over there, and all of a sudden there’s a deck of cards. This guy picks them up and says, “What are these cards? These are the RFID cards, the cards with the cheating bar on the side.”

I was the only winner in the game. I was the only person that won the entire session. The next day the game runner and I are having a meeting, and he says, “This cheating deck of cards was in the game, and they think you put them in. They think you’re a cheater.”

Art Parmann: Yeah, you’re the only person that won!

Josh Arieh: So, I go and take a lie detector test. I wanted to prove it to them and thought that’s what I needed to do to get paid.

Basically, what the scam was, these kids were trading paper, just credit, no matter who lost or who won. They were targeting a few people. And if there was ever a situation like mine that came up where somebody else won, they would just put this deck in and accuse them of cheating.

I did end up getting paid $31,000 from a guy in the game who lost that knew me. He’s like, “Josh, I know you didn’t cheat. I’m paying.” So that was pretty cool, but I got stiffed for the other $110,000.

As I got older and smarter, I knew how to avoid being cheated, but I never knew that I had to avoid being accused of being a cheater. Just another thing to worry about in the underground poker scene.

About The Table 1 Podcast

Hosted by high-stakes poker pros Art Parmann and Justin Young, the Table 1 Podcast is on a mission to make poker fun again. Tune in to see world-class pros talk poker, gambling, and all manner of life experiences on and off the felt. Visit the website for the podcast, newsletter, or even to get in the game. ♠