Poker Room

[Soccerdad1995]

FYI, all of these "legal" poker rooms were shutdown in the Dallas/Ft Worth area quite a while back. A room in Dallas was raided and I believe 1 or 2 were raided in Collin County too. There were no announcements made beforehand. That being said, I don't believe any patrons were arrested and I believe it's pretty standard even in underground games to let patrons go home free (provided they don't have drugs or warrants) and just go after the game runners.

When did these shutdowns occur? The rooms near Houston all opened last summer, and they are citing legal interpretations from around that same time, I believe. I'm not sure what you mean by "a while back". To me, that means years ago, so it would have predated the rooms we are now seeing.

From my intel, I have also heard that when the police raid actual underground games, they let the players go and just go after the folks running the game. From a player's perspective in those games your bigger fear is a robbery. Some of those rooms can have $50k or more in cash on hand. That is quite a motivation for some folks. This is all based on things I have heard, of course.

None of this is to be confused with home games, which I believe are completely legal as long as no one is making a profit from running the game. The home game I play in has at least 2-3 HPD cops playing on any given Saturday night and the stakes are much lower, so pretty safe all around. On a tangent, cops tend to be pretty good poker players since they have both patience and the ability to be very aggressive. It is unusual for these two personality traits to coexist in the same person, and law enforcement is one of the few professions where both are needed.

[Abraham]

Hwy 6, after Santa Fe not far from Alvin, has a couple of these quasi-legal poker rooms. (I guess that's what they are...?)

They've no outside advertising as to what they're all about, but one promises security.

Yeah, I want to rub elbows with these guys/gals, yuck...

[MaduroBU]

Interesting update:
The poker room now has an on duty GPD officer in the room most nights. Other than laughing at the players jawing at each other, he hasn't done much. If GPD is gearing up for a Prohibition style raid in which they crack skulls, they're definitely taking their time.

[Soccerdad1995]

I actually was chatting with a guy Saturday evening who said he was from Dallas and confirmed that the rooms there had all been shut down. He claimed this was an action of the city council through zoning enforcement. Apparently, there was extensive lobbying and campaign contributions coming from the likes of Winstar which is the nearest legal casino to Dallas, and which has a sizeable poker room. I have no idea whether this is accurate.

I will say that similar lobbying could happen in Houston since Tilman Fertita is pretty well connected, and he owns one of the two large, full service casinos that are close to Houston. I know that he had been lobbying the other way, to allow casinos in Texas, but wanted them to only be allowed on islands that were larger than X acres (which as defined would pretty much only be Galveston island where he owns some property). If he puts his money behind shutting down all competing gambling, that would be bad news for these poker rooms in Houston. On the other hand, if he were to embrace it and open his own poker room, he could make a killing. I'm thinking of doing things like giving players comps that they can use for free rooms at his casinos in Lake Charles, Biloxi, Vegas, and Atlantic City. He already gets a leg up on his Lake Charles competition by letting you use comps earned at that property for meals in Landry's restaurants throughout Texas. I think I wanna be him when I grow up.

[MaduroBU]

Fertitta is the current manifestation of the Maceo crime family. They've gone legit as far as I can tell, but their history on the island is checkered. Fertitta is also terrible to his emoloyees, which makes me suspicious of him as a person.

[Soccerdad1995]

Fertitta is the current manifestation of the Maceo crime family. They've gone legit as far as I can tell, but their history on the island is checkered. Fertitta is also terrible to his emoloyees, which makes me suspicious of him as a person.

I am not familiar with his history. I was trying to be a bit funny by saying I wanted to be him when I grow up. I know only of his business successes.

[WildRose]

At the one in Clear Lake area, several people carry there (so a couple of my friends who go there tell me)

Some carry openly

My only concern, from a legal point, is that I believe the statute talks about “parimutual” betting - and if so, I would think that a poker room would meet that definition

I"m not so sure since paramutual gambling generally means that a gov't entity has an interest in the operation.

Good one to investigate though for sure.

From what I can tell Texas applies the term only to race tracks.

Parimutuel wagering is allowed at horse and greyhound tracks, overseen by the Texas Racing Commission.

Class 1 horse tracks can be granted an unlimited number of racing days.[7] Up to three are allowed, in the state's three largest metropolitan areas.[7] They are: Lone Star Park in Grand Prairie, Retama Park in Selma, and Sam Houston Race Park in Houston.[8] Class 2 tracks can be granted a maximum of 60 racing days per year.[7] Several class 2 tracks are under development, but none are currently operating.[8] Class 3 licenses are issued to county or nonprofit fairs, and allow 16 racing days at most.[7] The only current class 3 license is held by the Gillespie County Fair in Fredericksburg.[8] Class 4 licenses, of which there are currently none,[8] are issued to county fairs and allow 5 racing days.[7]

The law allows for up to three greyhound tracks in the coastal counties of Cameron, Galveston, and Nueces.[9][10] The licensed tracks are Gulf Coast Racing in Corpus Christi, Gulf Greyhound Park in La Marque, and Valley Race Park in Harlingen.[8] Since 2010, with the greyhound industry on the decline, racing has been held primarily at Gulf Greyhound Park, with the other two tracks focusing on simulcast betting and offering few to zero live race days.[11][12]... .

In 1960, gambler Virgil "Red" Berry was elected to the Texas House of Representatives on a pro-parimutuel platform.[14] His efforts made little headway, and in protest, he proposed in 1969 to split the state in two, with horse betting legal in South Texas.[15] Nonbinding statewide referenda to revive parimutuel betting were defeated in 1962,[16] 1968,[17] 1974,[18] and 1978,[19] with opposition led largely by Baptist churches.[20] A poll on the Republican primary ballot in 1982 found majority support for betting.[21] Finally, in 1987, Texas voters approved a referendum legalizing parimutuel wagering again and creating the Texas Racing Commission, with a local election required in any county to allow a track.[22] Simulcast wagering at tracks was legalized in 1991.[23].... .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambling_ ... l_wagering

I"m not sure that it would apply to any off track gambling establishment unless they were directly engaged in betting on the events at the track and, perhaps not even then.

[Scott in Houston]

There's one near my house in Katy, and the owner encourages folks to conceal and carry.
There is nothing in the law preventing it unless they post 30.06 or 30.07.

Carry away... and I would recommend it as they are definitely a target of bad-people... they know there is a lot of cash and that people come in and out with lots of cash on them.

[VectorWega]

FYI, all of these "legal" poker rooms were shutdown in the Dallas/Ft Worth area quite a while back. A room in Dallas was raided and I believe 1 or 2 were raided in Collin County too. There were no announcements made beforehand. That being said, I don't believe any patrons were arrested and I believe it's pretty standard even in underground games to let patrons go home free (provided they don't have drugs or warrants) and just go after the game runners.

When did these shutdowns occur? The rooms near Houston all opened last summer, and they are citing legal interpretations from around that same time, I believe. I'm not sure what you mean by "a while back". To me, that means years ago, so it would have predated the rooms we are now seeing.

Sorry for not being clear. All of the "legal" poker rooms in Dallas/Ft Worth closed in 2017, within months of the first room opening in the area. There are "legal" poker rooms throughout the state of Texas except for in the DFW metro area.

[VectorWega]

I actually was chatting with a guy Saturday evening who said he was from Dallas and confirmed that the rooms there had all been shut down. He claimed this was an action of the city council through zoning enforcement. Apparently, there was extensive lobbying and campaign contributions coming from the likes of Winstar which is the nearest legal casino to Dallas, and which has a sizeable poker room. I have no idea whether this is accurate.

Rooms shut down in multiple cities and multiple counties. There are 14 cities in DFW with at least 100,000 residents and there are 4 different counties in DFW which have over 800,000 residents yet there are ZERO "legal" poker rooms in DFW. I'll let you do the math as to why that is.

[VectorWega]

A young man was shot by robbers while leaving Texas Card House in Austin early Monday morning (late Sunday night). According to the Texas Card House website they have 30.06 and 30.07 signs posted so it would be illegal to carry there.

Just as a follow up to this, 2 were arrested for this shooting. 1 of the perps was a contract security officer for Texas Card House who was working security at the time of the shooting.

https://www.kxan.com/news/crime/two-arr ... 1191275393

[Chaparral]

He claimed this was an action of the city council through zoning enforcement. Apparently, there was extensive lobbying and campaign contributions coming from the likes of Winstar which is the nearest legal casino to Dallas, and which has a sizeable poker room.

I will say that similar lobbying could happen in Houston since Tilman Fertita is pretty well connected, and he owns one of the two large, full service casinos that are close to Houston.

I can believe this as Dallas, and many of its suburbs, have strict zoning laws (and in some cases, corrupt city councils).

However, Houston is unique among major US cities in not having zoning laws.