Grandmas Gain International Notoriety As Snitch Rats On Their Mahjong Game

ORLANDO, Fla. — Someone was suspicious of Zelda King and her gang of gambling grandmas. She and her octogenarian gal pals gathered every Thursday at the clubhouse of the Escondido Condominium retirement community in Altamonte Springs where they spent hours around a table overlooking the pool, wagering on mahjong. Then the cops came. A snitch had ratted them out, authorities said. “It’s ridiculous,” she said of the police inquiry into money games at the Escondido Condominiums clubhouse. The probe was prompted by a complaint to state authorities about gambling at the condo complex, including penny-ante poker, $5 bingo nights and mahjong games with King and her friends, Bernice Diamond, Lee Delnick and Helen Greenspan, a Holocaust survivor. Mahjong, a game of Chinese origin, is played with a set of 144 tiles featuring Chinese characters and symbols. “My neurologist, Dr.