the English only rule seems to be a constant issue in Vegas cardrooms but especially so during the WSOP.

for some reason even though almost all players are familiar with this rule .... they also seem to not have a grasp on what it means.

A couple of months ago I had a player speaking Vietnamese to someone sweating her. I explained to them that they had to speak English only while at the table. I then got a 20 minute diatribe form one of our regular Vietnamese players about how the nice dealers don't say anything about this and I was out of line because they weren't talking about the hand (apparently all the good dealers speak Vietnamese).

Almost everybody understands why two players with cards in front of them can't be speaking a foreign language, but there are number of situations where players seemed shocked by the rule.

1) Talking to someone who is not a player in the game. A player with cards starts speaking a foreign language with a friend sweating them, or to a friend who has just come over to speak to them.


For some reason people think that this should be acceptable. The problem is that in poker we have rules about what can be said at a poker table. If we take the foreign language issue out of it .... we can see the problem. Imagine a player with cards talking with a friend who is not in the game about how he should play his hand? That violates OPTAH. So since he isn;t allowed to do that in English ..... we can;t let him do that in another language..... but since the staff and other players don't all speak the foreign language we have no idea if what you are saying violates OPTAH or is just a discussion of your dinner plans so ENGLISH ONLY must be enforced in this circumstance.

2) Well what about if the player isn't in the hand .... then it must be OK? Of course not. Is there anything they could be saying which would not be allowed at the table in English? Well what if he is discussing what he folded? or speculating about what other players hold? We wouldn;t let him do that in English. Now some people think there is no problem with this since nobody else can understand them. And that would be a reaosnable argument if they were speaking a language known only to two people in the world. But we simply can not know if anyone else at the table can understand them.

3) Two Players at the table who have folded Again same problem. We simply do not know that no one else at the table can understand them..... and if they are discussing their cards they are providing unfair information to anyone who does understand them.

4) But my friend doesn't speak English .... so now I can't talk to him.

This is one of my favorite arguments. Sir i didn't say you can't speak to your friend in his language. I said you can't do it at the poker table (or during a hand depending on house rules) feel free to get up walk over there and speak to him in any language you would like.

5) "I just said ......"

I don't care what it is you say you just said. I am asking you to stop speaking a foreign language .... I am not asking for a translation.

6) ON THE PHONE

Just because you are speaking on the phone doesn't mean we can't hear you. Again there are things that a player might say on the phone in English that would not be permitted ..... "Damn I just folded duece Seven and the flop came seven seven duece." "Wow its a big pot and I think this guy is bluffing" Since I can;t understand you I have no way of knowing you aren;lt saying something like that.

That is your problem.

Don't preach to the players. Educate your fellow dealers.

Oh I wish that had some chance of working.....

There's a balance that needs to be maintained between making a game safe vs. making a game pleasant to play. There's going to be no best, right answer. In addition, if someone wants to cheat, they can do so without having to speak another language.

I certainly agree that in the first case, it can't be allowed. That's easy to monitor because there should be no conversation going on no matter what. Nor is there any excuse. "If the conversation can't wait and is more important than your hand, please fold your hand. If the hand is important, you are delaying the game with your conversation." At the same time, I'd get the reputation that you don't allow people who are sweating another player to speak English during a hand, either.

As for 2,3 and 6, I don't know how under common LV rules that you prevent anyone from cheating. Unlike in CT, people appear to be allowed to use their phones and text during a hand. If you allow this, allowing someone to speaking a different language is no different.

Having lived outside the US, I understand the frustration one has when you have an imperfect or even no understanding of the common language. Unless there's some reason you think players are communicating about a hand, I don't see any reason to assume someone speaking something other than English is cheating. TBH, even in case 1, if the only time the people talk is when the player shows the sweater the hand and then starts talking, then I don't need to know the language, I know they are cheating.

I have had Vegas dealers and floors allow seated players to speak to each other in differerent languages as long as they are not in the hand or between hands.

This was at the Venetian and Mirage.


In fairness, in each case they were horrible players and it was only Asian people complaining against people speaking Arabic. They were clearly not cheating.

Carlos and Juan muck preflop.

Flop is 44x.

Carlos tells Juan (in Spanish) that he folded a 4.

I do not know Carlos or Juan, but I understand Spanish, and I am in the hand.

You are my opponent, and do not understand Spanish.

No problem?

#1 is the only one that's close. Thank you very much for enforcing all the other ones none of them really have any wiggle room. #1 as a player I mean if somebody out of the hand has a foreign friend come over and they say three or four words to them (like, "hello, I can't talk") in Vietnamese I'm willing to risk that they're not cheating me even if I'm not sure what the three or four words were. That's the only one on the list I think maybe deserves a little wiggle room though I'd rather err on the side of too strict than too loose in enforcement usually.

If it's a recurring thing (like with a person sweating them) I think just explain they have to go away from the table if they want to talk while a hand is in progress. Again, if the sweater slaps them on the back and congratulates them for dragging a huge pot and they say a few words (Thanks! What a river!) it's all good explain the difference between that and talking while there's action and have some leniency regarding that.

You're right that if it was more consistently enforced and more consistently clear it'd save us all a lot of time. You're also right that many of the exceptions that are made are wrong. IMO.

Look English Only is the rule, and a rule is rule. However, sometimes, players call it out just to be jerks. About a year ago, I was ordering an espresso from the cocktail waitress in Spanish. She is Colombian. When I ordered the espresso, the jerk from across the table screamed, "English Only". I thought he was only kidding, but when I turned to look at him he was dead serious, and instructed the Dealer to remind me of the rule. I told him to get a life in English.

All extremely valid reasons that you pointed out OP... as a matter of fact, I called out some Italians this weekend at Aria for english only. fortunately they were very pleasant folks(about 3-4 of them at the table) and they all agreed that english was the rule.

still, from time to time they were still slipping in Italian. I think you need to be somewhat tolerant of it as we... LAS VEGAS... is really an international destination. I would rather them have a great time and consider coming back again than the send them home broke and pissed off by local "attitudes". I think I accomplished both this weekend.(sent them home broke but happy)

This is a bit of part of the problem. The assumption that the concern about this rule is about players trying to cheat.

I would say that 98% of the time that players are speaking a foreign language I am pretty confident they are doing so as part of a plan to cheat their opponents. But many of them don't think its cheating to coach a friend. And MANY MANY MANY people see absolutely nothing wrong with talking about the hand while it is in progress even in English. The thing is that when they do it in English i can address it and put a stop to it. "Sir, please discuss the play of the hand while they are still playing....."

Players can have conversations while in a hand certainly they shouldn't be allowed to delay the game. You can;t let them whisper .... But if a guy with cards wants to discuss his dinner plans with the guy sweating him while the action is on his opponent I see no problem ....

While I agree that texting and phone use may present issues .... they are different issues. If I text my buddy who isn;t in the game and tell him I just folded pocket 5's and the flop came with the other two 5's no one at the table has any additional information which can impact the hand. If i call himup and say this well then everybody has heard it and it can impact the play of the hand. If a player says it in Spanish then other people who understand spanish have this information.

Again my concern is much more on stopping people from saying things that may impact play then trying to prevent intentional cheating.

Because my experience with English speaking players is that they frequently talk about the hand until the dealer puts a stop to it ..... I see no reason for me not to assume the same thing is going on in foreign languages.

When 4 hearts come on the board and someone says "who has a heart?" I don't think that person is cheating. I don't think that person is actually trying to signal to another player "hey look out .... there might be a flush" But i know that it can't be allowed to continue.


I don't care about in between hands........ (though I know that the rule at the Venetian is no foreign language at the table period)


Its not always clear ..... but again the concern is not just about cheating.


And in the case of someone who literallly is comes over and says three words the discussion is irrelevant. It only matters for those who would continue. So if you know it is over (friend walked away) you don;t have to say anything to enforce the rule because the viuolation has already stopped.

Again I don't care about it when there isn't a hand going on. The justification for the rule is about while there is action going on.

How long before we have a few/ some Spanish only tables at the major casinos? Or is that already the case IDK?? Seems like that is not totally the wrong way to go with how the demographics in the USA are headed . Hell maybe it's a silly idea IDK

There are venues that allow two languages at the table, require that the dealers speak both and the dealer can/will translate between them. But yeah I can see Commerce offering a "Vietnamese only table" too.

The most common rule I've experienced seems to be "English only while in a hand" but I'm not sure that really goes far enough. The first time I ever sat at a live cash game two Chinese guys started discussing something in between hands that went "Blah blah blah ABC blah blah". Seemed obvious to me that they were sharing their assessment of the new guy. At least it wasn't "Blah blah blah Donkey blah blah".

As for talking to someone not seated at the table I don't want someone standing behind me saying ANYTHING - English or otherwise - to someone else when they're in a hand with me. I'm not even crazy about a guy standing behind me if he's friends with someone across the table.

I don't see what the issue is here - isn't this rule standard in all US rooms?

If the dealer won't enforce call the floor over.

I worked in a room which had plaques made that said "Foreign Language Table" We never used them ..... but the idea is ok. If players want to play at a table where that will be allowed ..... and therefore understand that dealer will be unable to police what is being said at the table I see no reason not allow it.

A couple of weeks ago I ended up dealing to a table fo 10 buddies who were speaking hindi. It was clear to me they weren't following rules like OPTAH but they didn;t care. As long as they were the only ones at the table .... I let them have their free for all. Later in the evening when some of them left the game and we got other players in the game I immediately put a stop to it (and they were reasonable and understood why).

Although there are far superior ways to handle the issue, if one does not speak a word of a language that two people are speaking in, it's almost impossible to know what's being said. He wasn't being a jerk for reminding you of the rule, he was being a jerk for the rude, loud manner in which he conducted himself.

The simple truth that most people ITT get, but a significant number of the overall pool of players do not, is that the rule exists because it is IMPOSSIBLE to know what people are talking about when they talk in a different language. A person may claim they are talking about an entirely unrelated manner, but there is no way to verify that, so one's phone conversation is about what time your sister's flight gets sounds no different than one's conversation about how you just folded rags pre-flop and it would have been the nuts (as the hand plays out).

Because I'm a procedural/policy geek (it comes from being a lawyer), I've always wondered what would happen if two people start busting out midevil english, like Chaucer, or if one busts out very difficult to follow English like the thickest accent working-class England dialogue or "Ebonics"...but I come up with retarded questions involving extremely dumb hypotheticals all the time when I'm killing the dead time during live poker grinds.