Quote:
Originally Posted by pocket_zeros
Texas is only anti-regulation if you're on the right side of the politician's favor and donor list. To give you an idea, Tesla isn't allowed to sell cars directly to customers in the state because Texas has a law against selling new cars without a dealership. If the richest man in the world couldn't get that ridiculous regulation repealed then what chance do a couple of poker club owners have for repealing anti-gambling regulations?
First off, that's a red herring argument. You are asking how are they going to repeal anti-gambling regulations that don't exist. This after I just insinuated that I don't see much political expiency to passing such legislation. In fact, there were two major pieces of gambling legislation being pushed in the state of Texas last year and neither one had anything to do with poker rooms. If you think it is politically expedient to pass anti-poker regulation, I'd love to know which representatives will be behind said legislation.
In North Texas, had the likes of 52 Social and Champions been allowed to open the rooms that they tried to open, then I could see that create a ground swell of support for new legislation (in that part of the state). However, local and state officials were able to score political wins without one piece of legislation being drafted.
I'm not saying it won't happen, but where is the support from this going to come from? Midland, TX is one of the most conservative good ol' boy cities in the entire US and I can't find a single news article where people in Midland want the poker room shut down. So where is this support going to come from? Austin? Houston? These rooms have been operating going on 7 years now.
As for Elon, hopefully he didn't spend too much on that one. I know some of the power players on the other side and he could have just paid me to tell him that it wasn't going to happen. BTW, I actually don't agree that said law is "ridiculous."
Anyways, people with money are a dime a dozen in Texas. Even in death billionaire Sheldon Adelson continues to throw money at Texas trying to get his casinos in the state. Maybe at some point Sands will finally get its way and have 4 resort casinos in Texas and maybe they'll slip some poker room legislation into the bill, but until then who are the politicians trying to get the law changed?