Shannon Elizabeth Home Game Under Fire

Actress Shannon Elizabeth is a well-known celebrity poker player, having cashed in several World Series of Poker events and reaching the semifinals of the 2007 NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship. But recent allegations suggest that she may also be running a less than reputable home game out of her home in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles.

The story started when gossip writer Perez Hilton published an email from a reader who claimed to have played poker at Elizabeth’s home. The email alleges that Elizabeth – best known for her role in American Pie – did not play in the game, but instead drifted in and out of the room, collecting money from the players.

While showing up for a game with a celebrity only to find they weren’t playing might be disappointing, the more serious allegations revolved around the idea that Elizabeth might be charging an illegal rake, and just how much money Elizabeth was making off of these games. According to the email, “one pot…had only $70 in it, but the dealer took $25 out for the house.” The email suggests that the high rake was presented as the cost of playing in a celebrity’s home, and goes on to call Elizabeth “mean, immature, disrespectful, and just an all around shallow greedy has-been.”

However, while these allegations would be serious if true, many doubt the voracity of the email claims. For one, the claims have no supporting evidence beyond the one anonymous email presented in the story, leading many to wonder whether Perez Hilton should have published the claims at all. It has also been pointed out that, even if the basics of the story were true, it’s quite possible that the $25 collected was a time charge (rather than a rake), and that the players making these allegations simply misunderstood what was happening.

For her part, Elizabeth responded via her twitter account, stating that she was in Las Vegas at the World Series of Poker at the time these events were supposedly taking place. Given the lack of additional evidence and Elizabeth’s reputation in the poker world, it seems that barring new developments, it’s unlikely that there will be much fallout for her from this story.