Quote:
Originally Posted by PocketChads
What does volunteer dealing have to do with Portland card rooms?
The clubs have to have volunteer dealers to comply with their social gaming licenses. They say they meet this requirement by not having them on the payroll of the club. But then some dealers went to Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI) who of course did classify them as employees who need to be paid minimum wage, covered by worker's comp insurance, etc.. So they started a legal process against Encore, which promptly closed up shop.
So now everyone is like "they can't be employees or the game is illegal" and using that as some rationale for continuing with an unpaid work force, which of course is ludicrous from a labor perspective. Stating things like "well they make more than minimum so who cares" and stuff like that. They are missing the point that the BOLI does not have a duty to protect poker clubs.
It seems like only a matter of time before BOLI and/or the regulators of the social gaming licenses get involved at every club. The media is running with stories about "unregulated illegal poker clubs" which in part embarrass the politicians.
Was fun while it lasted...