Forty people, including some who are soldiers at a nearby U.S. Army base, were charged by police with gambling offenses after a poker tournament in Fayetteville, North Carolina, USA, was raided.

According to media reports, members of the Fayetteville Police Department and the North Carolina Alcohol Law Enforcement Division executed a search warrant on a Fayetteville building on October 3 and found an illegal poker tournament in progress.

Forty people on the premises, including some soldiers from nearby Fort Bragg, were charged with illegal gambling, media reports said.

One of the 40, Christian P. Lunardi, age 36, of Fayetteville, the operator of the tournament, was also charged with violating state alcohol laws for providing alcohol to the poker players, media reports said.

Another of the 40 charged with illegal gambling was Lunardi’s mother, Doris Lunardi, age 63, also of Fayetteville, media reports said.

Law enforcement officers involved in the raid confiscated about $19,000 in cash, poker tables, poker chips, televisions and video cameras, media reports said.

Officers then searched poker players’ vehicles parked outside the bulding and found marijuana, cocaine, pills and guns in some of them, media reports said.

The owners of those vehicles were charged with drug and weapons offenses, media reports said.

Law enforcement officers then raided and searched Christian Lunardi’s nearby home and confiscated about $4,000 in cash found there, media reports said.

Fayetteville police received a tip in March about an illegal poker operation and had been staking out the scene for months before the raid, media reports said.

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