OAKLAND — The city’s semi-secret illegal gambling industry has taken a violent turn in recent weeks, according to police.
Authorities in Oakland say they have linked 18 recent shootings to an ongoing “feud” between rival illicit casinos. The shootings targeted at least four suspected gambling shacks, including those that were subjected to police raids earlier this month, authorities said in court filings.
Five people have been injured in the back-and-forth shootings, according to police. One of the victims was a woman who had been recently texting a suspected gambling shack employee about setting up various slot machines at a property, authorities said.
The violence led to a series of raids at the beginning of March, targeting a casino on wheels and several homes believed to be facilitating illegal slot machines, authorities said. Officers seized gambling machines, firearms, methamphetamine, ledgers, and other evidence, according to an Oakland police news release.
Now, a man believed to be running two illegal gambling dens on 17th Avenue, 33-year-old Wai “Weezy” Hoang, is behind bars facing parole revocation charges. Hoang was released from jail last year after accepting a plea deal in a case where he and two others allegedly stripped and beat a gambling patron inside an illicit casino on the 1900 block of 17th Avenue, one of the establishments Hoang allegedly manages.
Originally charged with torture, Hoang and two co-defendants accepted plea deals on assault charges and two-year sentences, which they were allowed to complete on house arrest, records show. Police said at the time the victim suffered “a large amount of blood loss” and appeared to lose consciousness during the beating.
Hoang’s name — and the property on the 1900 block of 17th Avenue — have come up repeatedly in gambling investigations before and after the 2022 beatdown.
It was raided twice by police in 2024, including one incident where officers seized firearms, 11 digital slot machines, $550 in cash and Hoang’s ID card, according to court records.
In August 2022, authorities say they seized four semi-automatic firearms, 15 pounds of marijuana, 12 gaming machines, and $3,000 in cash from the house. In October 2020, obtained an arrest warrant for Hoang after finding drugs at the property, but he wasn’t located until July 2021, during a raid on a suspected illegal gambling den the 1400 block of 14th Avenue. In that raid, police seized eight firearms, 30 high-capacity magazines, a bulletproof vest, 18 gaming machines, and $21,000 in cash, court records show.
In June 2018, Hoang listed the 17th Avenue property as his residence, and was arrested there on suspicion of possessing 75 pounds of marijuana and four firearms, according to arrest records.
Despite all of this, a January 2025 probation report compiled after Hoang’s assault conviction classifies him as a “low” risk of re-offending. But weeks after that report was finalized, on March 5, police raided the 17th Avenue property once again, and arrested Hoang, records show.
This time, police say Hoang made a break for it, jumping over a fence into an East 19th Street alleyway. An officer ran after him, yelling commands to surrender, and Hoang eventually complied, according to court records. He is being held at Santa Rita Jail in Dublin without bail, and due for a parole revocation hearing on Tuesday morning.