Ninety-nine percent of the time.
That’s how often Anthony Hutchison, currently on trial for bribery and fraud, would lose while playing poker at private games in Houston, according to a Houston-based professional poker player.
Ayaz Mahmood, a World Series of Poker bracelet winner, testified on Wednesday that Hutchison consistently lost when playing Pot Limit Omaha, a poker variant where players are dealt four hole cards but may only use two.
Mahmood also testified, when questioned by Hutchison’s attorney, Rusty Hardin, that Hutchison had a tendency to double down on his bets after losing — a behavior often seen in high-stakes players attempting to recover their losses through riskier moves.
“He would chase it,” Mahmood said, adding, “We call it poker tilt, which means if you’re losing, you chase it and try to make your money back.”
Prosecutors called Mahmood to testify on the thirteenth day of Hutchison’s trial to bolster their argument that Hutchison falsified his tax returns and used his companies to fund his gambling habit. For much of the 2010s, Hutchison’s businesses — Southwest Wholesale and Just Construction — provided landscaping and maintenance services for the Houston Independent School District (HISD).
Hutchison, a former NFL running back, is also accused of bribing district employees to favor his companies and of overbilling for services such as lawn mowing and mulch. One of the employees allegedly involved, former chief operating officer Brian Busby, has denied taking bribes and is also standing trial.
Dressed in a white bomber jacket, black pants, and white Philipp Plein sneakers, Mahmood spent about 90 minutes on the witness stand. He recalled first meeting Hutchison around 2011 or 2012. Their usual poker venue was Prime Social Club, located on Westheimer Road in Houston’s Mid-West neighborhood — a private club where poker games are legal in Texas. While technically allowed, critics argue these clubs exploit loopholes in state law.
Mahmood testified that he and Hutchison typically played Pot Limit Omaha together two or three times a week. When Assistant U.S. Attorney Heather Rae Winter asked him to assess Hutchison’s poker skills, Mahmood bluntly replied, “Not too good.”
Mahmood said Hutchison frequently lost, noting that the largest amount he saw him lose in a single session was approximately $300,000.
According to prosecutors, when Hutchison needed to pay up, he wrote checks to Bulldog Timber, a Cleveland, Texas-based company that acts as a middleman between loggers and sawmills. Between 2015 and 2020, Bulldog Timber also cashed checks on the side for a three percent fee, according to the company’s owner, who testified on Tuesday.
Mahmood testified that he recommended that Hutchison use Bulldog Timber. Either he or one of his couriers typically delivered the checks to the company’s office. Alternatively, Mahmood or one of the runners would meet Bulldog Timber’s owner halfway between Cleveland and Houston to complete the transaction. The cash was then distributed to the players during their next poker game.
Mahmood testified that he cashed checks for Hutchison for five to seven years and performed similar services for other players as well. He estimated cashing between 40 and 50 checks in total for Hutchison.
Between 2015 and 2020, Hutchison issued nearly $3.2 million in checks to Bulldog Timber, either under his own name or through his companies, according to prosecutors. When factoring in a three percent cashing fee, he likely paid around $96,000 to cash those checks.
Memo lines on many of the checks presented by prosecutors listed projects at HISD schools. Prosecutors also introduced a series of work proposals to Bulldog Timber that appeared to have been drafted by Hutchison. The work outlined in the proposals also involved HISD projects, such as drainage and tree trimming.
However, neither Bulldog Timber’s owner, Theodore Theilen, nor his secretary could recall the company ever performing maintenance or construction work for the school district.
Prosecutors have argued that Hutchison reduced his taxable income over several years by improperly classifying the checks to Bulldog Timber as business expenses.
“The federal government is paying for his bribery and gambling losses,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert S. Johnson said in his opening statement, referring to Hutchison.
Hardin and his co-counsel, Letitia Quinones-Hollins, have argued that some of the checks were mistakenly classified as business expenses by Hutchison’s tax preparers while also claiming that he was attempting to conceal the full extent of a gambling addiction by spreading his losses across his businesses.
Under questioning by Hardin, Mahmood acknowledged that Hutchison likely suffered from such an addiction. He also acknowledged that he told federal authorities when interviewed that Hutchison lacked the “control and maturity” necessary to be a poker player.
Mahmood, 53, defeated 255 players to win a gold bracelet in the Heads-Up No-Limit Hold’em championship at the 2010 World Series of Poker.
That year’s contest required a buy-in of $10,000, and the payout for first place was $626,674, about $902,730 in today’s dollars. According to the World Series of Poker, Mahmood was the first Bangladesh-born poker player to win a gold bracelet at the time.
Despite his tendency to lose, Mahmood said Hutchison always paid his debts. He also agreed with Hardin that players often waited their turn to play with Hutchison because they knew he liked to bet big and was good for the money.
Mahmood said Hutchison’s gambling wasn’t limited to poker. Two checks shown in court on Wednesday indicated that Hutchison lost two bets totaling $151,108.50 to Mahmood when the two men were in Las Vegas in 2020 for that year’s Super Bowl between the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers.
Mahmood said one of the checks was a bet on who would win the game, and the other was for the total number of points scored. The checks were dated one day after the game and cashed with Bulldog Timber about nine days later. The memo lines of the checks included the names of HISD schools.
Mahmood’s appearance in court brought a much-needed burst of energy to a week filled with testimony from tax preparers and forensic accountants. U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen said it was the first time he recalled having a professional gambler testify in his courtroom.
“It’s much more exciting than an accountant,” he said after the jury had left for a 45-minute lunch.
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