It’s not just in the U.S. that innocent people are getting busted merely for playing their favorite card game.

Poker players in Canada are also in the gunsights of authorities run amok.

According to The Record, a newspaper in Ontario, Canada, 26 people were charged last week with gambling offenses, after police raided illegal poker games at two locations in the province.

One game was occurring at a private apartment in Waterloo, Ont., and the other game was occurring in a hotel room in Guelph, Ont., the newspaper reported.

The raids, which took place Oct. 17, were a coordinated effort by the Guelph Police Dept., the Waterloo Regional Police and the Ontario Provincial Police, who were acting on tips from people who had lost money at the poker games, or their spouses, the newspaper reported.

Police seized poker tables, poker chips, playing cards and $8,425 in cash in the two raids, and charged 21 people with being found in a gaming house and five with keeping a gaming house, the newspaper reported.

The penalty for merely being in a so-called “gaming house” is just a fine, but keeping a gaming house can get you two years in jail, police told the newspaper.

(E-mail Tom Somach at tomsomach@yahoo.com.)