If the recent Texas poker activity has you looking for a way to champion the cause of poker in Texas, look no further. Stuart writes:

I have been pondering the need for an organization to champion the legalization of poker in Texas. Last night's posting on your blog gave me the impetus to act.

I am creating an organization with the sole purpose of encouraging the Texas Legislature to legalize poker.

We will have an organizational election on January 31st, 2005.

texansforpoker.com

Great stuff! I'm eager to see how the organization develops and what it can get accomplished. Go to the site to sign up!

LRS writes:

Is there a current movement in the Texas legislature to legalize poker? I mean, they have horse racing and the lottery. If not, who can I write to?

None that I know of, at least not in any organized fashion. If free public poker tournaments with prizes are deemed illegal by the D.A., I'm going to organize something, or at least hook interested folks up with someone who has enough time on their hands to make a difference since I may not be that person.

In the meantime, if you'd like to talk to a legislator about legalizing poker, I'd recommend you start with your local state representative. Contact them, set up some time to speak, or send a letter explaining why you think poker should be legalized in Texas (or whatever state you happen to live in, if elsewhere). And post your experiences here!

Following on from my earlier article about the TDCAA seeking an opinion from the Texas Attorney General that free-entry poker tournaments which give out prizes are illegal, I had a very informative e-mail dialog with Markus Kypreos, the research attorney who wrote the article I quoted.

Mr. Kypreos is attempting to clarify the law as it is written, which his organization gets asked about a lot, so my characterization of him as a "radical anti-poker lobbyist" was a little harsh.

That said, I still disagree with his interpretation of how the laws should be applied to chips in a free-entry poker tournament. I'm very interested in seeing how the A.G. views the subject because interpreting the law as banning the risking of anything of value in public could have some wider implications for activities beyond poker.

The whole issue is going to come down to whether a chip in a free-entry poker tournament has value, or does not have value. I would fervently argue that those chips do not have value. Success in a poker tournament is not measured by how many chips you amass, but how long you stay alive with at least one chip. Your end payout in a poker tournament is correlated to the number of people you have outlasted, not the number of chips you have amassed. The number of chips you amass is irrelevant because outside of first place, everyone ends the tournament with zero chips.

At no point in a poker tournament are chips exchanged for prizes, nor is there any "exchange rate" between chips and prizes. Players receive prizes/points/rewards purely based on the order in which they busted out of the tournament.

If the A.G. does opine that chips in a poker tournament have value and therefore free-entry tournaments with prizes are illegal, that would seem to suggest that any game which involves risking points, or tokens, or anything which has a bearing on the end result and is partially determined by chance, is illegal if prizes are given out. That would include: bridge, backgammon, television game shows, etc.

I'll be following this and posting updates here as they occur. If the A.G. does rule against free poker tournaments, I'll do whatever I can to mobilize some lobbying of state reps to get the Texas penal code changed as that will be pretty much the only solution. Please send me your contact information if you'd like to help or be informed of actions to take to help protect legal poker in Texas! Lawyers especially welcome :)

It sounds like it may be a publicity stunt; it's at least incredibly unlikely to happen, and hasn't gotten a ton of press, but Empire Poker has offered to finance the Washington baseball franchise's stadium. In exchange for a few small favors :)

All the company wants in return is naming rights to the team's new field. And the exclusive right to all the signs inside the stadium. And, um, one other little thing: It wants to put Internet kiosks throughout the stadium so fans can play electronic poker before, during and after the game.

So, Washington would get baseball and hot dogs and box seats . . . and Texas Hold 'Em?

Link

Enforcement in Texas seems to have taken a stronger interest in poker lately. A nightclub owner was recently arrested for trying to host a $20 entry fee poker tournament at his club.

Texas City police received a tip about the "Texas Hold 'Em" tournament planned for Dec. 5 at Shenanigans. They broke it up and arrested Skaggs, 71, and club manager Milessa Hill, 36, charging both with operating a gambling establishment.

Sgt. Brian Goetschius said the tournament was illegal because it was held in a public place. He said Skaggs charged participants a $20 entry fee, which was to go toward the winnings.

Link

While this type of tournament setup is clearly illegal -- public place, with entry fee -- a noteworthy point is that all 80 of the tournament participants received misdemeanor gambling citations, the largest group of gambling citations I've heard of in the recent past.

The Texas District and County Attorneys Association in Austin is going after public poker tournaments, by proactively seeking an opinion from the Texas Attorney General that free public poker tournaments which use a points-based or similar system to give out prizes are illegal.

To bolster his interpretation of Texas' gambling laws, Kypreos is seeking an opinion from the Texas attorney general's office on the legality of public poker games that use a point system.
[...]
Police and prosecutors are waiting for similar guidance before cracking down on public poker games, said Richard Alpert, Tarrant County assistant district attorney.

Link

The amazing part of this is that Markus Kypreos, the research attorney making this case, is contending that public poker tournaments are illegal even if they are free. I thought the above article had it wrong until I read his own article from the November-December TDCAA Prosecutor newsletter:

Two blocks from the TDCAA office, a sign hangs from a restaurant balcony: "Free Texas Hold ’Em Tournament Every Saturday." This has become an all too-common attempt to circumvent the law. These poker clubs, which use local restaurants and bars to hold their tournaments, eliminate the entry fee and allow the public to play for free. They then award the winners points. Over several months, players can use their points to redeem valuable rewards and prizes. Some establishments even award vacations. So why are these poker clubs illegal?

Link (warning: very large PDF file!)

He then goes on to contend that players are playing for something of value, and therefore the contest is illegal. Kypreos is conveniently overlooking the fact that the Texas penal code is very clear:

"Bet" means an agreement to win or lose something of value solely or partially by chance.

Link

I can't see it likely that he will succeed in effectively redefining "bet" as including agreements to simply win something of value based on chance, with no chance of losing. If that were to occur, a whole swath of promotional games and activities in Texas would suddenly be as illegal as the so-called "illegal poker clubs" (read: bars and restaurants offering free tournaments) that this radical anti-poker lobbyist is trying to get banned.

Update: see here for an update.

On Friday night, four armed thieves robbed a poker game in San Antonio and were then caught by police. From the article, the foursome were local construction workers and do not sound like they are related to the recent Austin robberies.

The four suspects were charged with aggravated robbery, according to the police report. Their names were not released because they had yet to see a judge as of Saturday afternoon.
[...]
An officer said the suspects are construction workers who had a job at a nearby house. They are accused of stealing more than $1,500, seven wallets, 70 poker chips, four cell phones and several pieces of jewelry.

Link

A regular 10/20 raked limit game got busted in College Station on Monday night. It sounds like it was a pretty sizeable operation -- the article claims they had ten tables and that the bust was the result of a three-month investigation.

About 25 people were in the facility at about 8:30 p.m. Monday, and 18 of them were issued a citation for gambling. The Class C misdemeanor is punishable by a fine of up to $500, Dickson said.

Police arrested 28-year-old Shawn Michael Lauderdale, who authorities believe was in charge of the operation, and two accused dealers, 30-year-old Jose Guadalupe Galvan Jr. of Bryan and 48-year-old Harold Ray Eaton of Houston. Each is charged with promotion of gambling, intentionally or knowingly operating a gambling place and possession of gambling paraphernalia -- all Class A misdemeanors punishable by a fine of up to $4,000 and a year in jail.

The article also quotes the Bryan TABC office supervisor as saying that the recent robberies in Austin were part of the motivation to bust the game:

"We had some concerns — some of these operations, especially in Austin and Waco, have been getting robbed," he said. "We figured it was not your typical nickel-and-dime poker game, and it worried us."

Link (thanks, Mike!)

For winning the World Blogger's Poker Tour Holiday Classic Tournament! Very entertaining writeup. One of these days I'll participate in one of these in-person tournaments, and then the whole poker blogger world will know my name... as the guy who went all-in with Q9o after three raises. Link

in further bad news for Austin poker home games, there was another poker robbery on Friday night this weekend. As always these things have sketchy detail, but the three accounts I've heard correlate enough to be publishable.

It was a small but well-publicized home game, and was held at gunpoint by two guys who took the buyins. They apparently had cased the joint enough to be knowledgeable about the setup there. A couple folks at the game were beaten, but the overall M.O. of this robbery sounds fairly different from the earlier robbery I reported here.

What's bad about this robbery is the fact that it was a small game (rather than a larger tournament), which from a thief's standpoint should be a non-desirable target. I don't understand why thieves would target a small home game; from a risk:reward standpoint they are very poor targets.

So while I expect attendance at poker home games to take a temporary dip, I also expect thieves in their right minds not to try to hit any more games anytime soon. I play with enough NRA members and gun dealers that are now packing heat to games that would make that a very poor choice.

After a (very) long time waiting, Stuey has been picked up and will be playing on cable TV in the US very soon! Here is the post from the director:

We have just learned that STARZ will present HIGH ROLLER on January 30th at 9pm (et) as a WORLD PREMIERE MOVIE EVENT!

Link

Great news and I look forward to seeing it.

My entries on Stuey go back as far as June 2003: here, here and here, for starters. The morale of the story is that if you are an independent film producer, be patient!

I happen to be a heavy rock-paper-scissors enthusiast, which is why I'm so excited about Fox Sports Net broadcasting the 2004 RPS world championships! Great work by the organizing committee on promoting RPS, which I think has benefitted from the popularity of TV poker.

Tune in to the 2004 Rock Paper Scissors World Championships on Fox Sports Net on December 10th at 8pm and 11pm (in many major urban centers). Rebroadcast at Monday, December 12th, at 7am.

Competitive level RPS will be making television history on December 10th as Fox Sports Net's The Best Damn Sports Show Period will broadcast a one-hour long program of the event hosted by Matt Vasgersian, Tom Arnold and color commentary by none other than Master Roshambollah (top-ranked US Player in 2003). Watch the best players in the World compete for $10,000.00 and the title of World Champion of Rock Paper Scissors.

Link

Yet another sign o the times -- poker in dear abby?!

DEAR CONCERNED: Why are you worried about offending someone who is extorting money from you? I don't know how many people participate in these poker nights, but with a percentage of every hand going to the house, Wilma must be making a tidy sum.

Link

Finally, a workable solution to the Social Security crisis...

WASHINGTON, DC- President Bush signed an ambitious Social Security plan into law Monday that will allow citizens to bet a third of their payroll taxes on their favorite sports teams.

Link

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