A sign on the door of Little Kings and Queens says closed until further notice.
BUFORD, Ga. - A popular charity poker room in Buford closed its doors amid criminal allegations its founder was actually running a commercial gambling operation.
It’s quite the fall for Little Kings and Queens, which was honored by Gwinnett Magazine as Best Charity of 2021.
Shane Maxwell, 51, faces one felony count of commercial gambling and one misdemeanor count of keeping a gambling place. He was released on $1,300 bond.
Police say they also seized $30,000 in "illegal funds."
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Popular charity poker room in Buford closes after arrest
It’s quite the fall for Little Kings and Queens, which was honored by Gwinnett Magazine as Best Charity of 2021.
"My attorney has advised me not to do any interviews until further notice," Maxwell emailed in response to a request for comment. He referred the FOX 5 I-Team to a March podcast — now deleted — that spelled out why he believed Little Kings and Queens was not breaking the law.
"It took a long time to get people to understand what we’re all about," Maxwell said on the video. "And then we won local officials over. We won over the police department. We won over the county. And we won over the state."
For six years Little Kings and Queens openly advertised its Texas Hold’em poker tournaments on the first floor of the Tannery Row building in Buford.
They called it Poker With a Purpose, promising money raised during the games was going to support worthy causes.
Most gambling is still illegal in Georgia.
Dennis "Shane" Maxwell is charged with felony commercial gambling. He started Little Kings and Queens in 2016.
"There’s a lot of stigmatism with poker," Maxwell said on his podcast. "People look at it as a negative."
So what changed? The Gwinnett County Police Vice Unit. A spokesman said a new group of investigators started looking into complaints last year.
On August 20, 2021, police say they visited Little Kings and Queens and met with Maxwell.
"They told him there that his operation looked like illegal gambling," the police spokesman told the FOX 5 I-Team.
Ten months later they told him again — this time in a warrant for his arrest.
A sign on the poker room door this week said closed until further notice. A visit there showed equipment packed up and moved out. Dozens of workers have been laid off. Police say no other arrests are expected.
In 2019, the last tax period publicly available, Little Kings and Queens reported $1.6 million in revenue.
Some of the eight computers donated by Little Kings and Queens to the Home of Hope homeless shelter in Buford.
One of the charities benefiting from Little Kings and Queens is Home of Hope in Buford, an impressive round-the-clock transition facility for as many as 20 homeless moms and their children.
Last year, the poker charity bought eight computers and a printer to upgrade Home of Hope’s aging resource center.
"Whatever you need to work on we have it for you here," explained Home of Hope’s CEO Maureen Kornowa as she proudly showed off the computers. "And it’s nice to have new technology."
In December 2021, the FOX 5 I-Team asked Little Kings and Queens to name the charities they supported with their poker revenue.
They sent a list of 51 donations for that year, including some involving law enforcement:
$3,500 to the Gwinnett Police Chiefs Association.
$2,397 to the Battle of the Badges, another police charity.
Neither returned requests for comment.
Home for Hope was on the list twice — $5,286 and $2,500. CEO Kornowa says that could account for the computers, but they received no money.
That 2021 list we were given adds up to $148,648.95, nowhere close to the $1,149,007 in grants the charity claimed it handed out in 2019. IRS filings show Little Kings and Queens took in $1,695,116 that year.
If that revenue was the same last year — the year represented by that donation list provided to us by the charity — that means less than 10 percent actually went to charitable causes.
Records provided by Little Kings and Queens to the FOX 5 I-Team don't add up to the amount of donations they claim they usually hand out each year.
We asked Home of Hope’s CEO whether she was concerned that her charity may have been used to legitimize an illegal gambling operation.
"The thought hadn’t crossed my mind again until you said that," she answered. "To use our charity to do something less than stellar … that hurts my heart."
The Charities Division for the Georgia Secretary of State is now involved in the case.
"We were especially concerned about representations this organization was making to its donors," said Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.
Maxwell did not respond to questions about why his list of charities was smaller than the amount of money his poker games typically brought in each year.
Here’s what he said in that March YouTube video, months after police say they warned him what he was doing was illegal:
"We want to be the biggest and best charity in Georgia. And once we take Georgia, we want to take it to the whole country."
Not anymore.