Website still up as of 3 PM. popcorn.gif.

heavy facebook advertising every day for past two weeks

My 4mo old baby got sick while we were in Houston. Couldn’t leave him and the wife alone knowing he wasn’t feeling well. There’s always next time I suppose.

Read this on the Mint Poker facebook page under comments about the new club/franchise he sold.


Mint Poker: We received a letter from the city in December. Met with them. Instituted a few changed in our business model to ensure compliance. It's old "news".

Yep, a lot of his dealers were worried about getting busted so he called the meeting to say all is ok and he met with Webster officials and if he makes some minor changes he is Webster approved. Even says he would cover their legal costs if it ever came to that. He’s very trustworthy so I’m sure he would - lmao

Would be curious when i go back to see what changes took place there.

Straight from the owners mouth, they werent gonna do ****. Bluff was called. Mint aint going no where. Gonna continue to operate the way they have been.

RE: Mint Letter

It is hilarious that they automatically presume the Molins reference is a typo. Letters of that nature often will have the name of the requestor on the second page and there was a former attorney in Texas by the name of Michael Molins. He is not disbarred, but is ineligible to practice at this time for fee or CLE-noncompliance. I see the second page notations on a regular basis from the OAG in letter rulings related to my work.

Also lost is that Gregg is not the attorney who would make a prosecutorial decision on anything related to Mint unless they chose to cite for a Class C misdemeanor offense. Gregg is a partner in a private firm that contracts with the City of Webster. He is NOT even a City employee in the truest sense of the word and is NOT a prosecutor for Harris County.

Some contracted City Attorneys are from the defense bar and some are from the civil bar. I remember being surprised once outside of Waco when the City Attorney was a defense attorney who was also a member of TCDLA.

There are some valid issues with the manner in which Mint operates if any of the stories on 2P2 and elsewhere are accurate. Chips coming off the table to pay tips and fees is simply a prompt way to land in hot water. That has never been disputed by anyone discussing the present models in place around the State. There are some civil issues that could also be brought if the claims about the website are accurate. I don't play at Mint and don't have intentions of doing so, and as such, I don't keep up with their website.

The food and beverage issues do not link to an alleged violation of the Texas Penal Code. There could be other violations if they don't have the proper permitting (to the extent required) for the sale of food and beverages. But no allegations are advanced that a local Ordinance has been violated nor are there any other State statutory schema that are referenced, so it is unclear where Gregg was going with that...

Where Gregg makes things interesting is the claim of Mint having NEVER been approved by the City, which means there was never a permit for construction or a Certificate of Occupancy issued. However, I seem to recall some in the pre-opening days talking about seeing construction permit documents posted. A Certificate of Occupancy is NOT the same as the City approving of the conduct, but is IS an approval of sorts FOR the business that is required to operate.

Another interesting note about the letter is that it never shows as having been delivered. It arrived at a Post Office in a different ZIP code around the Houston area, but never to the ZIP code in which Mint is located. I don't have enough to call the letter fraudulent, but there are things that would make for some interesting questions if the people behind SIGH did not insist on hiding their identities.

And, let us all remember that the City of Webster is a Harris County jurisdiction. As such, before ANY prosecution can occur, there has to be someone outside of Webster that gives a damn and wants to waste more resources on dismissals and no-bills to follow on that fantabulous effort by Lester Blizzard. I am guessing that poker rooms are lower rungs on the ladder than being a sanctuary County that has essentially stopped prosecuting small-quantity pot cases.

A civil injunction is not out of the realm of reason, but I could easily see even someone as potentially unethical as Eakman getting permission from the Courts to continue operating until such time as a criminal court ruled on the merits of the arguments. Well, unless there are municipal Ordinances that can be shown to have been violated...

Any update on the new room? Prime?

I am interested in this as well.....

SIGH put up a post confirming it's business as usual at Mint, based on interviews with players there. Their post also ties current activities back to the city's C&D letter and makes the argument Mint is still violating gambling laws despite a few cosmetic changes:

https://www.stopillegalgamblinghoust...ities-Continue

Any updates on new place called Prime?

Supposedly Prime REQUIRES valet parking

I don't know who I feel more sorry for...these clueless Prime guys or that poor kid that bought a "franchise" from Michael Eakman.

TCH in Austin had all 13 tables full(130 players) and 24 on the wait list at one point tonight. This weekend is the $100k guarantee tourney and the Satellite tournament tonight gave out 10 seats.

HTown Poker Guy quit posting your nonsense in this thread. We get it. You don't want these places to operate and you are against them. It's obvious you are a butthurt underground game runner that has lost his livelihood and are praying/desperate for these places to close so you can go back to raping, I mean raking the dollars from HTown poker players. Get over it or post something with some substance.

Prime Social Club Report - www.primesocialtx.com

Went to the grand opening last night. This club rivals many of the card clubs in California. The owners spared no expense. It has 40 tables, a full bar and an enclosed high limit room. For the grand opening they had food catered in from a local Sushi place(Kato Robato) and open bar. This brought out every poker player and anyone that knew a poker player in town. I estimate there were more than 500 people in there.

They spread 1/3 NL($300 max buy in), 2/5 NL, 5/10 NL, 1/3 PLO and 5/5 PLO. They also had a big 25/50 PLO game in the high limit room. Saw every game runner in town and folks from Lion's and Post Oak there checking it out.

Here are the details on their charges:

$10 membership fee

$10 per day fee (this was waived last night and the rest of this weekend). After this weekend, new players would pay both their first time.

They issue you a credit card with your name on it. Eventually this will be how you buy time but it wasn't operational yet so last night they had time chips. Normal rate will be $8 per 30 minutes but for last night they did $8 per hour.

Valet is required unfortunately. They have a decent size parking lot but they only have one way in and one way out and valet has the entrance pretty much locked up.

I left at 1 and they still had 8 tables going.

This weekend they have 2 $20,000 guaranteed tournaments. Buy in is $200 + $15. $10,000 is guaranteed to first place. No add ons. Rebuys through level 6. Tourneys start at 12:00.

After this weekend they will have 2 tourneys every day. One at 12 and one at 6.

For anyone wanting to check them out they have free food and drinks again on both Friday and Saturday.

The same Prime that is neither open nor has a social media presence? How in the world would you know that?

Post Oak does, so you may be confusing the two. It's been discussed here, is a pita, they "waive" the valet fee if you buy 4 hours of play.

I am wrong, and wouldn't look so bad if I only had one more sip of coffee before posting. Teach my sorry ass.

A *higher* hourly rate? That's disappointing ...

If you play 4 hours or less Prime is a bit cheaper than Post Oak.

If you play 5 hours it costs the same as Post Oak.

6 hours or more and Prime would cost more than Post Oak.

Post Oak is $15 per day plus $15 an hour.

Prime is $10 per day plus $16 an hour.

That's ridiculous from an obvious poker room shill.

My issue is these clowns are all pushing a broken model that's going to get everyone shut down...the city riled up...law enforcement riled up...a bunch of bad press...and eventually the legislature riled up.

In the long run, this is bad for poker...and is just like what happened with online poker.

Mandatory valet is enough to keep me away. It isn't about paying but rather that I don't trust a lot jockey not to screw my cars up...too few of them know what a third pedal is for much less how NOT to deal with performance clutches.

Daily fantasy is probably a better comparison

also, would be nuts if they still had free food and drinks over the weekend. There were soooo many people hanging around drinking all night

Agree, they should have only allowed people in that are actually playing poker or with someone playing poker but part of what they are trying do do/show is that they also a private club that people can go to eat and drink.

They would be smart to cut off the free food/drink at an earlier time though to get out the riff/raff that are just there for the freebies. Last night they kept serving until 12. 8 or so would probably be better.

To Michelle re: the parking - I told them I needed to self park due to having my firearm in the car and they let me do it but I'm not sure how long that is going to fly. Seemed like they were pretty much making everyone valet unless they were adamant they didn't want to.