The text in the article isn't an exact transcript of the news report/video. Watch the video; the reporter says it at the end of her report

I am skeptical HPD is going to do anything anytime soon. They could have cracked down on Mint or Lonestar Card House already if they wanted to. They probably just said that because no police force wants to look soft on crime by saying that a controversial topic is allowed and they won't be doing anything. Some portion of the population would be outraged.

To me, the biggest issue is that these poker club game runners all seem to be pretty incompetent when it comes to understanding Texas gambling laws.

For as long as I can remember, every time there's a poker room bust, the Harris County DA uses 47.03 Gambling Promotion to shut the poker room down and bring charges, not 47.02 Gambling. 47.03 doesn't have an affirmative defense. None of these guys seem to understand this. Instead, they just talk about 47.02 and its affirmative defense all the time.

Had these guys actually talked to any criminal defense attorneys that have defended game runners on poker-related gambling charges, they would have learned this. But, alas, they haven't.

Now, by so publicly bumbling about, these guys have set the poker community and legalization efforts back by years. What a shame!

Wow, that doesn't sound too promising. I take it you are an attorney? Do you think it will end up getting shut down? The Post Oak Poker Club guys seem pretty "with it" and are making every possible effort to do their due diligence and be transparent and not get shut down. I would be surprised if they were too dumb to try to do that beforehand. They seem pretty well connected and well-off, from what I have seen and read.

Neither are in the City of Houston. Mint is in Clear Lake and Lone Star is in Conroe. Different governments and police departments.

He also cited that it was a Harris County law, though. Mint is in Harris County.

I agree that Lone Star is not in Harris County, but if anything, small town police governments are more likely to crack down on such things than a more liberal city like Houston with plenty more important crimes to go after.

Do you not think they checked this out legally before making these investments? I mean how long as the places in austin and SA been opened and not be in raided a year plus I would say. Also what DA wants to take this to a jury trial and lose? Either way I think it is a positive for the poker community.

Yep. According to this Houston Chronicle article, the Mint Poker owner checked with the city attorney before he even signed the lease. You'd have to be a pretty clueless businessperson to try to open one of these up without first trying to check on all of the legal side of it first. I doubt these guys want to waste thousands of dollars and get arrested.

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news...e-11742079.php

I agree as well as the others rooms in the state. This come down to each DA wanting to prosecute and come out with a win if it goes to a jury trial.

yes now i saw it..they reported police are looking into it...not sure what that means exactly

Politicians always think they know what is best for everyone.. F them

I just noticed there were more of these popping in DFW than I realized so I decided to create a list. If there any that I don't mention, please post.

ALREADY OPEN

Poker Rooms of Texas
Location: Plano
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pokerroomsoftexas/
Website: http://www.pokerroomsoftexas.com/

CJ's Card Club
Location: Dallas (Northwest)
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CJsCardClubTX/
Website: http://www.cjscardclub.com/

Fifth Street Card Club
Location: Arlington
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fifthstreetcardclub/
Website: https://fifthstreetcardclub.com/


OPENING SOON

The Jewel
Location: Addison
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheJewelAddison/
Website: http://www.thejeweladdison.com/

Big Texas Poker Room
Location: Plano (albeit, listed as Richardson)
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BigTexasPoker/
Website: http://bigtexaspoker.com/

FTN Poker
Location: McKinney
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ftnpoker/
Website: https://www.ftnpoker.com/

Top Set Poker
Location: Plano
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TopSetPokerClub/
Website: http://www.topsetpokerclub.com/


ETC

Lucky's Card Room
Location: Fort Worth
Facebook: N/A
Website: http://www.luckyscardroom.com/

This website says Lucky's was open but has been closed for renovations. Couldn't find much info on it.

Awesome, thanks!

Wow.. They are opening every where.

So I went to Post Oak Poker Club this past Friday. This was my first time at any of these "rake-free" poker clubs.

I walked in and you can tell it was a former restaurant. Still feels like one, down to the employees greeting you from a podium right when you walk in, as a hostess would at a restaurant.

I signed up for my membership and went over to the cage to get $300 in chips for the cash game. After I got my chips, I had to flag down an employee to ask how I could join a game. I got added to the paper list and had to sit in the bar for 45 minutes before they called me.

The room has 10-12 tables haphazardly spread out through the restaurant. But on a Friday night, after mountains of publicity, when I arrived at 6pm, there were only about 5 tables in use (3 for cash game and 2 for tournament.) I figured they would be SLAMMED with business.

I was not a fan of the time card purchase concept. I realize that it's a necessary evil for the way the laws work, but man, I hate feeling like a prisoner because if you say, get up to go to the restroom or make a phone call or stretch your legs, you are just bleeding money on the time cards you purchased.

And unless you want to keep a bunch of money in time cards (which you are allowed to take home and bring them back to use), you feel like when you purchase a time card, you need to use them all before leaving, so it creates this assessment game of how many time cards should you buy and is it worth it to buy another, etc... One would probably get used to this, I guess, but I did not like it. I wish they would allow you to sell back cards or have some sort of clock that would just keep track of your time at the table.

The food looked great. I did not eat any, but several guys at my table did.

All in all, the staff was nice enough. I would probably give it a 3.5-4/5 overall. It quenches one's thirst to play poker in Houston, and is definitely better than having to drive to Lake Charles, but the time card balancing was less than ideal and I did not enjoy waiting to get in a game for 45 minutes. I also question how good their business will be if they weren't SLAMMED with business a week after opening and all of the local publicity they have received.

Anyone in Houston who likes poker should go check it out. It's safe. They have two armed police officers on site.

If anyone has any questions, let me know and I will try to answer them.

Art is there a 300 dollar cap on the buy-in for 1-3? also what was your thoughts.experiences on the action generally...I agree with the time rental being a different mindset but suprised you cannot keep time for future at least in half hour blocks.

How do they keep track of how much time you have left to play? If you run out of time at the table do they make you rack up and leave or are you given the chance to purchase more on the spot?

The max buy-in on a new table is 100 big blinds but if it is an existing table, you can buy in up to the size of the biggest stack at the table.

Apparently house rules are no button straddle, but UTG straddle allowed.

The action was pretty mixed. Felt like there were some people playing poker for the first time as well as a few grinders in headphones. Overall, the average customer was probably a 45 year old casual recreational player. Not many young guys in there at all and play was pretty tight and passive. I played for 4 hours and I think I saw one 3-bet. (granted, I was only playing 1-3). One guy tried to limp reraise his pocket Aces UTG and no one raised him. He got 9 callers.

Someone did the under the gun $6 straddle only twice over the whole four hours. The games were pretty quiet. No chatting or talking at all at my table. The dealer even kept commenting on it. Sort of felt like people were cautiously trying to feel each other out and did not know what to expect. I didn't see any horrible plays, nor anything impressive either. Overall, pretty middle of the road, I would say.

Just to clarify on the time, you can keep the time cards for the future. You can take them home and bring them back and use them supposedly. I personally did not want to do that though. I don't want to tie up my cash in time cards when there's really no advantage to. Maybe I'm weird, but I don't ever leave a casino without cashing chips out either. I don't want to take them home with me and have to guarantee myself a return trip.

The beginning is very confusing. I still don't understand how it works when you sit down. If you are supposed to give the dealer your card or not. Because it seems unfair to me to have to give them your 30 minute card to sit down for your first 10 or 15 minutes, because odds are, you are not going to sit down perfectly at the top or bottom of the hour. Every 30 minutes, at the top and bottom of the hour, the dealer stops play after a hand and asks all players do give them a time card. and in order to get dealt into the hand you have to provide a card to the dealer.

If you run out of time cards, you are allowed to stay seated. The dealer ask you if you want to buy more or leave and if you say buy more, he will yell out for a time card runner who will come and ask you how many you want to buy and will go get you more and you will get dealt into the hand.

The time card part feels very disorganized. Some players are asked for the cards right when they sit down and others are allowed to play for free when they sit down. So I am not sure how it works. Maybe if it's less than 15 minutes or less until a time card request you get to play those first few minutes for free? not sure. There's no record keeping or anything. Just a manual process of giving them a piece of plastic.

The Austin-based rooms mostly have you pay your accrued time fees
when you leave, although I know the Texas Card Room North has you
pay a 2-hour deposit ($20) up front, not sure if they enacted that
policy for Texas Card Room South, as I haven't been down there in a while.

You're a salesman for sure but I'm not buying these numbers. What are the 22 rooms? Does that include Wynn (which re-opened at Encore)? Does this count Imperial Palace and Linq as separate closings? Rooms are going to close and rooms are going to open. Having a count of just the # of closed rooms is irrelevant if it doesn't account for those that have opened. (sometimes a room opens, and then is closed. The net difference is 0 but in your stats that is 1 room closed).

Aside from that, these numbers don't really make your point considering that while Vegas #s are down overall this has coincided with massive poker rooms popping up in various spots across the country. Many people are gambling locally rather than going to Vegas to gamble.

This is no different than paying time rake though. That being said, rake at these lower levels is substantial and that becomes quite apparent when at the end of the night you shell out $50+ for 5 hours of play. That is nothing for a 5/T+ game but at 1/2 that's a good percentage of your earnings...and if you lose you still have to pay it! lol

Going to post a trip report about Post Oak Poker room in another post shortly but this Councilman really pisses me off. Tons of other issues he should be worried about and he chooses to focus on making it his effort to get this shut down. I called his office this morning and left my #. I live in his district and want to discuss this with him and will post follow up if he responds.

Typed a detailed post about my experience at Post Oak but for some reason it didn't go through, doh!!!! Here is a quick summary since I don't have time to redo the whole thing:

When you come in you pay a 1x application fee of $10. They give you a card that you have to show each time you come. If you lose it you have to pay the $10 again for a new card.

There is a daily fee of $15. Doesn't matter if you play 30 minutes or all day, you have to pay it to play.

You go to a cage to get your chips. When you do they require you to buy 2 hours of time cards (4 cards at $7.50 each for 30 minutes). You can bring unused time cards back for another day.

I got on a new 1/3 table while waiting for a seat at 5/5 and you can buy up to $300 on a new table. Existing tables you can buy up to big stack.

Saw lots of players I knew from Houston underground games. This is already hitting those games hard..

Played at 1/3 for 15 minutes before getting called for the 5/5 and didn't see one raised pot (not kidding, everyone was limping). I raised 4x's and didn't get one caller.

5/5 was a whole different story. Knew 2 of the players and the rest were unknown. Lots of action in the game and stacks were deep. Booked a $1,800 win after getting lucky and flopping a straight against an over pair. Opponent turned an open ended straight draw with his over pair (QQ) vs my (78 suited) board was 6,9,10 flop and J turn and we got all the money in on the turn. Played for 3 hours and cashed out.

They do have chip runners that can get you chips or time cards anytime so you don't have to go back to the cage.

Have a waiter that comes around regularly. Bottled water is $2, Cokes are $3, they have a nice menu and the waiter also has ice water in cups for free.

You can't tip the dealers with chips but you can give them dollars to convert to dollar coins that you can then tip with. Those are also used to tip chip runners and waiter (if you choose to tip them). They had a massage girl who charged $2 a minute.

Rake here is much better than equivalent raked games in this area which are as high as 10% up to $25(and even higher at a couple). Definitely planning to go back. Will check back to see if any other questions later.

One more thing, Clive quit mucking up the thread! We know you hate Eakman, we get it.

So its $15 an hour? And $15 a day?
Any monthly membership?

Plano is $10 an hour and $40 a month with free water, soda, and snacks.