FORTY TWO women aged between 75 and 85, including a 95-year-old from Limassol, were shocked on Sunday when police raided their card game and confiscated their €100 in betting money.
The women were charged for illegal gambling after the police raid in an Ayios Ioannis house on Sunday evening.
Officers found the 42 women at the club run by two women aged 79 and 70. The oldest person arrested was a 95-year-old. The raid took place around 6pm on Sunday after a series of complaints by neighbours about noise in the evenings when the women were coming and going from the house.
Officers found that one of the rooms in the house had been set up with several tables covered in green felt. The 42 women were caught seated around the tables playing poker and gin rummy for cash in a similar fashion to a gambling club. Playing cards for money is illegal in Cyprus and police regularly carry out raids around the island at betting shops, clubs and associations particularly coming up to Christmas, and through New Year,  when more people go out to play cards and socialise over the holiday period.
Following a search police confiscated 546 chips, 530 playing cards and approximately €100 in cash. All of the women were charged in writing at the police station and then released.
The incident, however, does not appear to be and isolated one as card playing is the hobby of many elderly ladies in Limassol.
The fact that on most occasions the amounts of money gambled by these women are minimal and that many more such clubs operate privately in Limassol homes, raises questions of why police chose to become involved in this particular case.
“Most of my friends are widows and at our age there is not much to do. For years now we organise afternoon tea parties at our houses each week, on a rotating basis. We get together, drink tea and play cards. We only gamble a few euros and it’s all just for fun,” said an 87-year-old Limassol resident who preferred to stay anonymous.
“The only thing police achieve by doing such raids is to ridicule women of a certain age,” she said.