Quote:
Originally Posted by ChaosInEquilibrium
The only bad information presented IMO is the claim that clubs are clearly violating the law. ThatÂ’s a personal opinion of a poster who I presume is not a lawyer. I do have lawyer friends who are regs in the Texas poker scene and they donÂ’t agree. Personally, I donÂ’t know whatÂ’s true and I doubt anyone actually knows. Many of the posters arguing on the side of the non-illegality of the clubs probably arenÂ’t as confident in their position as those arguing for illegality. I think the correct position is to not be certain of your position. No insider can speak for the law enforcementÂ’s future plans. We just donÂ’t know what the future holds.
The best argument against the “obvious” illegality of the clubs is the fact that of the many local jurisdictions not one has taken action against the clubs, outside the obvious example of the Houston raids … which we all know were thrown out by the Houston DA due to internal conflicts of interest. Many independent actors failed to shut these clubs in 7 years. That says something pretty strong about the current state of the law. We have 100s of examples of clubs not being shut down, and no examples of clubs being shut down. That’s a lot of data that indicates a strong stability in the Texas poker club scene. How long that stability will last is anyones guess … of course any stable environment is susceptible to disruptions. Anyone in this thread who says they have a strong idea when said disruptions will occur is just talking out of their a$$ IMO.
Absolutely agree that nobody can say for sure what will happen because the decision to enforce any given law can be capricious and subject to politics. As to whether it's illegal, I don't think the statute could be any clearer -
Sec. 47.02 b) carves out three exceptions, including #2 which reads:
2) no person received any economic benefit other than personal winnings
How the clubs will argue that the owners, employees, dealers, etc.. aren't economically benefiting from gambling in their clubs will be quite interesting. The notion that a judge would look at the statute and be persuaded the economic benefit enjoyed is disconnected from gambling by dint of how consideration is received as a membership and rental fee is specious. The statute's wording is broad and doesn't limit the definition of economic benefit to something as specific as a pro rata gambling commission like a rake, so why would a judge limit his interpretation to that? They'd have to argue paying customers would patronize the club in that same financial arrangement even in the absence of gambling offered. Doesn't pass the
duck test.
As to the clubs being permitted to operate for years without serious interference as meaningful to their presumed legality, no. There are plenty of precedents against that, including for poker itself.
