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The House tonight approved legislation that would increase the size of some charitable and non-profit group bingo prizes and overhaul rules for Texas Hold’em Poker.

Both games are important sources of funding for non-profit groups.

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SunHerald.com : States Move to Collect New Revenue From Sports Gambling for Critical Government Programs

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WASHINGTON, May 22 –
The Safe and Secure Internet Gambling Initiative (SSIGI) announced its support for attempts to legalize sports betting in Delaware and New Jersey. Legislators’ in both states are seeking to collect revenue from sports gambling, which is currently being lost in an underground, uncontrolled marketplace. Bookies fail to pay about $7 billion a year in federal wagering excise taxes, according to an Internal Revenue Service estimate based on a National Gambling Impact Study Commission.

“While some form of gambling is allowable in almost every state, it is totally hypocritical that there would be a line drawn in the sand for sports gambling, an activity that continues and is estimated to illegally generate up to $380 billion per year in the U.S.,” said Jeffrey Sandman, spokesperson for the Safe and Secure Internet Gambling Initiative. “A prohibition on sports gambling means that billions of dollars in much-needed tax revenue that could be used for education and other government programs is being lost to bookies and off-shore Internet gambling operators.”

When William Holley of Middletown holds a barbecue at his house, a few friends often will sit down for a game of Texas hold ‘em poker at $2 a hand.

Holley never thought he or his friends were committing a crime.

“I let them go have their drinks, have their fun,” said Holley, 42. “It’s a barbecue. What are your friends supposed to do when they get there, play hopscotch?”

So Holley was shocked when his town’s newly formed police force busted up a poker game in a suburban cul-de-sac of mini-mansions. While allegations surrounding the arrests of the home’s residents sound like the game was more than a few friendly hands of poker, many in the state were surprised to learn that there’s nothing written in Delaware laws that allows even penny-ante gambling in the home.

State Attorney General Beau Biden’s office put out a brief statement that said gambling in Delaware is illegal except through state-run lotteries, horse betting at race tracks and charitable gambling licensed by the state. Although Biden’s office added that it considers other factors when deciding whether to prosecute, it gave Holley and other poker aficionados cold comfort.

“It would really [tick] me off if the cops came up and raided a game at my house,” Holley said. “Don’t you think there’s better things to do?”

Unlike many other states, there’s no exception in Delaware law for social gambling, which is described as games at a private home where the winnings go to the players, said I. Nelson Rose, an authority on gambling law and a professor of law at Whittier Law School in Costa Mesa, Calif. But the police rarely make arrests in friendly card games, he said. John Mancus, past chairman and now a member of the Delaware Gaming Control Board, said there hasn’t been an arrest in recent memory. “It’s one of the laws on the books that nobody wants to enforce,” Rose said.

The Delaware situation illustrates the tension that arises when changing social trends butt up against gambling laws from the 19th and early 20th centuries, legal experts said.

Not only have Americans increasingly come to view gambling as legitimate entertainment, with the rise of state-sanctioned lotteries and casinos, but poker has become a national craze with televised tournaments of the popular Texas hold ‘em game, according to William Eadington, professor of economics and director of the Institute for the Study of Gambling and Commercial Gaming at the University of Nevada, Reno. “The trend has been to legalize it through legislation — or just ignore it,” Eadington said.

As a result, most players tend to believe it’s legal. Take poker lover Phil Shernofsky, 42, of Dover, who has played cards at friends’ homes.

He, like many, always believed that such games are legal unless the house is taking a cut of the action. “I don’t think it ever came up in conversations that something we were doing was illegal,” Shernofsky said.

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The difference between the poker played at Shane and Laurie Anderson’s home in The Legends, a pricey housing development in one of Delaware’s fastest-growing areas, and what is going on in dozens of other homes in Delaware may only have been a matter of degree.

The Andersons and housemate Matthew Balotin face gambling and child-endangerment charges after Middletown police busted them at their home a week ago. They are out on bail.

When the Andersons’ game grew in popularity over the past year, and after they reportedly installed an ATM machine and had a topless waitress or two — one of whom may have been Laurie Anderson — it became something more than just a game.

Parking problems provoked complaints from neighbors — some of whom, police say, participated in earlier, low-key games — which triggered the investigation.

But take away the topless waitresses and pots that held thousands of dollars, and the charges help expose the ambiguity in Delaware’s gambling laws: Playing unlicensed poker for money is illegal. Probably.

State officials and others who are in a position to deal with gambling and the problems that arise from it are confused.

“The lines have gotten so blurred,” said Lisa Pertzoff, executive director of the Delaware Council on Gambling Problems. “I thought the Friday night penny poker game was legal, but a deputy [attorney general] assured me it was wrong. I thought it was illegal only if the house took a cut.”

And don’t bother asking the Attorney General’s Office, which prosecutes gambling cases.

“The Department of Justice does not analyze the statute for hypothetical cases,” the office responded to a News Journal request for clarification. “When charges are brought to our attention we make prosecution decisions by reviewing them individually on their merits.”

Frank Long, former chairman of the Delaware Gaming Control Board, who has dealt with gambling issues for nearly a decade, is certain of the rules.

“Anytime money is exchanged, it’s against the law,” he said. “It’s simply against the law to gamble without a license. If I decided to start up a poker game, that would be against the law, just like illegal numbers.”

But poker playing among friends has been going on for generations.

“There are 20 to 30 games that go on throughout the area,” said Sean, a professional gambler from Stanton, who says he now spends up to five nights a week in Atlantic City making a living playing poker. He declined to give his full name. “Are they going to bust everyone who has their college buddies over to smoke cigars and bet money?”

Probably not. That would take a lot of manpower.

Then again, the bigger players aren’t all that hard to find. There are dozens of games played each week in the state, and there are even more people actively looking to play.

There also are Web sites, including www.homepoker games.com, which allow users to advertise for players to come to their homes. Last June, Anderson advertised on the site to recruit players to his home.

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