Dallas/Ft. Worth, TX Area Poker

What's your paranoia? That it's going to get raided while you are there? That's about a 1 in a million shot.

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Sounds like someone got fired, lol. The real answer is to just go play at The Fort where you have a little bit of table selection and game selection and the staff seems pretty professional to me.

No but I do no longer work there

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The Houston attempt to close Prime Social was a farce. The idea was that failure to close them down would lend credence they couldn’t be shutdown. The fix was always in on that one.

The AG doesn’t rule on legality. That is for the courts. AG can express opinion. He can choose to not pursue cases. None of this means legality.

Also choosing to not pursue a crime but later deciding to is nit entrapment. If done maliciously it could be considered selective prosecution. But you will note cops can allow tens or hundreds of speeders go buy but then pull you over. Try telling the judge ‘but others got away with it. They did not even get pulled over.’ Try and see how that flys.

You also are forgetting the players near Ft Worth who were cited but later dropped.

None of this means poker in TX is legal or not. Certainly none means players will be charged and convicted. Then again none means they can’t and won’t be.

The poker situation in TX is unsettled but sometime in the future I expect it will be settled

Nit entrapment is a huge part of my game.

Hi all, does anyone know if either Choctaw or Winstar (or both) offers PLO? From what I've read, it seems like Poker Atlas is the definitive source for which casinos spread which games, but it's been a long time since I've played live so was hoping someone on 2p2 could confirm for me.

Also, if anyone has played low-level PLO at either Choctaw/Winstar, how did the game play? Or should I just check out Texas Card House? I've never been so a little apprehensive about how it works.

I don't ever check them anymore so don't have any idea what they're spreading nowadays, but Winstar and Choctaw are both on Bravo instead of Poker Atlas if you want to keep an eye on them.

Since both are on Bravo, why not just check there. PA generally sucks for the games "played" on rooms that don't use PA.

Definitely the definitive source for games at these two casinos is Bravo as you can actually see for yourself.

Gotcha, thanks. I've been out of the game so long I hadn't even heard of Bravo. Appreciate it.

If you do go the TCH route, I've heard the 2/2 at Social is a little more tame than the 1/2 at Dallas. I haven't played in either though, so can't say from experience. For anything bigger you'll definitely have to go to TCH Social.

Awesome, that's good to know. Thanks!

$50 buyin. $35 goes to prize pool. $100 add on.

28 entries.
13 addons.

I'm pretty sure that's $2,280 unless my phone calculator is broken.

Total prize pool paid out in tournament at 5220 Social?

$2,000, which was the guarantee.

The extra $280? Who knows?

Gotta love poker without a governing body.

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In this situation, I would think they would mainly be after the owner of the club, and not the patrons. I am more concerned about attempted robberies than legal enforcement. They operate in a legal gray area that seems to be getting more white and white everyday. I would say go check out TCH Social in Las Colinas and when you step in, it should eliminate all of your worries.

Except - from what I heard - when they raided Watauga (sp?) - everyone was involved

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Getting more white?

We actually have someone found guilty and being penalized for this. So at least in that jurisdiction, in that implementation, we know the gray is now black. Can you point to a jurisdiction where all the implementations have been found legal. Choosing not to prosecute does not make the activity legal.

So far the state remains mum but even if the AG put out his opinion that it is legal, that only impacts the state prosecution. Neither prosecutors nor defending lawyers can determine legality. That remains with the courts, probably appeals courts at least but possibly state Supreme Court. So far the only court ruling decided and not under appeal is the one where operator was held guilty.

Will they charge and prosecute participants? Probably not but they might arrest and cite them. That would certainly chill some folks from playing. Definitely a powerful dissuading tool. Another is to start arresting and charging dealers. That would quickly dry up the good dealers who have any desire to deal in regulated states.

There is zero doubt that some facilities are clearly in violation of the state law. I know very little about many markets, but I do know most to nearly all rooms in Houston are openly raking pots. Do you consider that a grey area? How about the rooms dealing house games?

I don’t see any ultimate clarity on legality but I do expect eventually there will be a trigger event that forces TX to address this.

This event already happened (in Houston) with the very first room that was doing well that was raided, although it was alleged that they reported a significant income that looked a bit fishy. Then an influx of rooms opened after it was "dismissed" and handed over to the feds.

The trigger event may look different in Dallas/Ft. Worth area vs. Houston.

If the reported income amounts don't look like laundering, I don't see Houston slowing down anytime soon. I know less about North Texas.

There is evidence that event was a shill event. The parties involved knew of the conflicts and effectively staged an event they know could not be finished.

Also that particular room was at that time probably operating in the gray area. They were not raking pots. The subsequent influx, is exactly what lead to a bunch of zombie rooms in Houston. Nearly all of the rooms, including most of these zombies, have wandered well out of the gray area and deeply into clearly illegal. Raking actual pot, jp and bonus rake from pot, house advantage games, documented instances of money laundering (that one is isolated), etc.

The real crackdown likely won’t be in Houston/Harris county, it will be in one of the farther out suburbs. Though if the robberies and shootings continue that might be a trigger.

The rooms that are operating in the gray area may survive or could get drug down by 5hose choosing to operate illegally.

Houston has not shown any interest in controlling the rooms but if a trigger even happens, all bets are off.

Man 5220 is coming up short on a lot of it's guaranteed tournaments lately.

When they do hit they appear to be pocketing the overage.

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Lol, do you do this with all of your former employers or did these guys just really piss you off? If you're not there anymore you really don't have any idea what they're paying out, do you? Who knows how accurate the numbers on Poker Atlas are, which is what you're going by, right?

No. I'm on great standing with all my ex employers except this one.

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No, it doesn't. It counts for something, though. TCH Dallas is going on 4 years of operation, and it's not like it's some underground club that only advertises by word of mouth.

All it really means is that the authorities in that jurisdiction have not chosen arrest/prosecute. It says nothing about legality. Being in the open says even less

How many times have you sped past a cop? I can see drug sales happening if I wanted. They do it out in the open. Even better what about prostitution? Happens out in the open, oft3n in front of police in some places. Doesn’t have any bearing on legality when some authority for some reason decides to now make it a priority

Now I don’t expect any of major jurisdictions where poker is now to suddenly decide to prosecute unless something happens. The shootings and robberies associated with it might have came close in Houston. The wrong persons getting shot or robbed could be a trigger.

Another possibility is if a region, like maybe east TX, gets a decision in a state court, particularly if appealed and upheld. Then places on the fence would h@ve more surety in the status. Thus making such prosecution cheaper and easier for them

The difference is, speeding, drug-dealing, and prostitution are definitely, unambiguously illegal. These poker rooms are not.

There's also a significance difference between a dealer or a hooker saying "eff it" and doing their thing out in the open and a business going through all of the bureaucratic and logistical hurdles to get to the point of being able to open in a strip mall with a sign that basically says "play poker here."

Maybe cops and the DAs ignore hookers on the street, but if a brothel opened up in an Irving strip mall with the same amount with the same amount of transparency and visibility as TCH Social does, I promise you, the cops and DA would care, and put the kibbosh on it real quick. And we would all be stunned at the stupidity of the owners.

None of this means these poker rooms are guaranteed never to be shut down by the authorities, we've seen it before. But this conversation started because someone was asking about their friend who wanted to play poker at these places but was reluctant to because of potential legalities, and I'm surprised how many people are saying, in essence, "he should be afraid, and who knows, maybe they'll even start charging individual players like your friend lol"

Maybe you're right about the lack of a trigger event, but the longer a poker room stays open, the more it is likely, even if never 100% assured, that authorities have decided what they are doing is legal, and less likely they just have not decided to prosecute at this point.

Judges are god in the legal world but DAs are the St. Peter/bouncers for criminal issues and the fall in line with the state AG almost always. I really don’t think this was a reason to recreate a is Texas poker legal discussion it was a question on how much a players risk is in playing which is an opinion of course and tied to legality but not exactly the same thing. Honestly I haven’t even heard of home games where a player actually had a charge that wasn’t dropped in Texas most laws/prosecutions are targeted at running a gambling establishment but I’m not familiar with the state laws to that extent tbh just what I’ve heard happen to people.

I have heard of people getting robbed and even cheated so that’s why I said it’s a little weird to worry about legality over safety but to each their own I guess.

Actually the question that started this discussion or at least my involvement was exactly to ans specifically about the legality. Here was the exact question, “What would you say to somebody who is genuinely interested in playing at TCH or any of the other DFW-area cardhouses but is "paranoid" about the legality of it?”

Though I agree safety would be a bigger issue to me. But that is a bigger concern in Houston than DFW based on history. I also suspect a safety issue could be the trigger that causes a DA to decide go after a room.