A Westmoreland County lawyer charged with illegally operating poker tournaments wants those charges dismissed, saying the card game is not gambling.

Larry Burns, 63, of Derry Township was charged last year with misdemeanor gambling counts for running tournaments for a profit.

Police contend Burns made about $31,000 in profits from three Texas Hold ‘Em tournaments in Seward, in addition to an undisclosed amount from weekly poker games in Hempfield.

Burns, through defense attorney David Millstein, wants a county judge to throw out the charges because there are no provisions in the law that make poker a gambling enterprise.

“There are, however, a number of reported decisions of various courts of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania that define the terms ‘gambling’ and ‘unlawful gambling’ in ways that do not proscribe such conduct and which specifically state that wagering on poker or playing poker for money or other prices is not ‘gambling’ or ‘unlawful gambling’ within the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,” Millstein wrote in a brief filed Thursday.

Millstein said that because the state constitution is vague, it cannot be used as a means to prosecute Burns.

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Five Carteret County residents have been cited on misdemeanor charges after police uncovered an alleged gambling operation at the site of a Morehead City business.

Police seized approximately $7,000 from the individuals as well as a poker table, chips and cards, and ledgers that indicated there was more than a friendly game of poker going on, said Morehead City Police Department Maj. Richard Abell.

“This had been going on for some time,” he said. “We seized ledgers indicating names and either money won or monies owed.”

A poker game was under way Wednesday when authorities conducted a search at O’Malley’s Pub and Grill on Arendell Street in Morehead City, Abell said. The alleged gambling operation was going on in a building detached from the main restaurant and used by the business for storage, he said.

Abell said the gambling operation was uncovered during a separate investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, and the two agencies conducted a search of the business at the same time.

Information from NCIS was not immediately available.

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A 14-year veteran of the Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Office was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of running a gambling operation that hosted card games seven days a week and occasionally raked in as much as $100,000 per night.

Lee Edward Morris, 38, was arrested by other sheriff’s officers at a commercial location, 1063 E. 3300 South, along with four other alleged operators and five people described as “gamblers,” Lt. Paul Jaroscak said.

Jaroscak said Thursday detectives initially had no idea that Morris – who is assigned to the Metro Gang Unit – was involved.

After learning Morris was part of the operation, “we continued the investigation until we were ready to make arrests, and that happened last night,” Jaroscak said.

Morris was booked into the Davis County jail on suspicion of ongoing criminal activity, a second-degree felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

Four other alleged operators were also arrested on similar felony counts. They are Angela McKown, 24, Lucas Lefevre, 33, Dennis E. Polster, 37, and Shawn Thompson, 33.
    
The five gamblers were cited for misdemeanor gambling and released.

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State legislators are moving toward changing the state constitution to demand a public vote before any gambling for profit can be legalized in Alaska.

The idea is to blunt an initiative that’s set to appear on the August statewide ballot. The initiative would create a commission with the power to authorize gambling — from lotteries to casino games — without the Legislature’s approval.

The state House voted 33-6 in favor of the constitutional amendment this week. It goes to the Senate, where Judiciary Committee Chairman Hollis French thinks it has a real shot at passing even with just four days left in the legislative session.

If the Senate does pass the constitutional amendment in time and the governor signs it, the idea would go to voters for approval in the November election. That’s presumably before the gaming commission could get set up and act.

“I want this to go into the constitution, that people will always have a say,” said Anchorage Democratic Rep. Harry Crawford, a longtime foe of expanding gambling who sponsored the measure with Eagle River Republican Rep. Nancy Dahlstrom.

Currently, it is up to the Legislature to decide whether to allow gambling beyond the limited number of pull-tabs, bingo, ice classics, pools, raffles and the like that are now legal to benefit nonprofits. Recent years have seen fights in the Legislature over whether to expand what’s allowed to include video poker, a casino, lotteries or card rooms. In the end, the Legislature refused to do so.

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An assistant prosecutor for Calhoun, Dorchester and Orangeburg counties was among 27 people arrested in a raid on a Hanahan house where people were playing poker, police say.

Don Sorenson was charged with unlawful games and betting. He submitted his resignation to chief prosecutor David Pascoe. But Pascoe told The (Charleston) Post and Courier that he is suspending Sorenson without pay until he decides what the 13-year veteran’s future will be with the office.

A home telephone listing for Sorenson could not be found Sunday.

“This is a magistrate level offense,” Charleston County sheriff’s Maj. John Clark told The Times and Democrat of Orangeburg. “I do not have a court date and time yet.”

The arrests Friday night were the result of a 10-month investigation. Officers executed a search warrant and seized more than $40,000, Clark said.

Investigators said the Hanahan house was hosting a well-organized poker and gambling operation with paid pit bosses and dealers. Poker is illegal under a 200-year-old state law that prohibits dice and card games.

“This isn’t boys’ poker night out,” Clark said. “This isn’t just friends getting together and playing poker for a quarter or a dollar. This was an organized poker operation in which they had people in positions who were acting as employees. They were being paid to do their jobs.”

The raid was at the home of Martin and Dawn Reyes, who told The Post and Courier that her husband began hosting the games about eight months ago. Reyes said the players were friends and her husband wasn’t paid.

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Chris Moneymaker was a mild-mannered accountant in Tennessee when he spent $40 to enter an Internet poker tournament. Before he was done, he’d won $2.5 million in the 2003 World Series of Poker (the first tourney he’d ever played in a casino) — giving the hundreds of thousands who watched on ESPN something to shoot for.

“I think anyone who comes in this room thinks, yeah, that could be me,” said 40-year-old Fran Lieberman, who sat waiting for a tournament to begin in the poker room at Casino del Sol last month. “Who wouldn’t?”

Even five years after the start of what is commonly referred to as the “poker boom,” the Moneymaker Effect continues to draw new waves of players to poker tables at local casinos, corner bars, living rooms and online.

“It’s probably more popular now than ever,” says Rick Chaurette, poker room director at Casino del Sol since 2003, who sees no end to the increased interest. “We’ve taught a whole new generation about poker, and a percentage of them are locked in for life.”

The game that has sucked in so many is Texas hold’em. With its relatively simple rules and a format that makes it easy to show — and analyze — on TV, hold’em has become part of the national lexicon.

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Every Tuesday night Mike Holm – and about 35 other area residents – play poker at the Sports Zone in Harrisburg.

For two years now, the bar has hosted a poker league every Tuesday night at 7 and 9 p.m. Participants take their chances on Texas Hold ‘Em, the ever-growing version of poker now a presence on television and in plenty of bars and home poker tables in the U.S.

“It’s real competitive and everyone has a good time. It’s a great social event,” Sports Zone Owner Dave Jennings said.

360 Bar & Grill in Tea, formerly the Sports Page, also has Texas Hold ‘Em competitions each Thursday and Friday. Owner Melissa Naatjes said the more games that are available, the more people will play.

“People just really want to get out and practice their game,” Naatjes said.

Texas Hold ‘Em is only one of more than 500 poker games and variations, Holm said.

In Texas Hold ‘Em, each player is dealt two cards. The player uses those two cards – called hole cards – along with the five community cards on the table to build a hand.

“It just fun and challenging,” Holm said. “It’s fun to see if you can beat the other guys.”

Players don’t bet with money in Harrisburg, but they still keep up their game.

A poker player for more than 30 years, Holm said success takes intuition and the ability to read the other players. Because many of the same players turn up week after week, Holm picks up on the their tendencies. Holm said he “tries to keep an even keel.” “I try not to have a nervous twitch,” he said. “A good poker player will pick up on that.”

As for new players, Holm said you don’t know what their ticks may be. “You bet on your intuitions then,” he said.

Jeff Hanssen, a two-year regular at the Sports Zone, picks up on little weaknesses – and takes advantage. In addition to twitches or facial expressions, Hanssen watches how the players throw their chips in, he said. Since the league began, Jennings and Hanssen said it’s grown in popularity. “When I started there were maybe 14 people,” Hanssen said.

Attracting players from Harrisburg, Tea, Sioux Falls and Brandon, Jennings said the game has grown and he now sees about 35 players turn up at each session. “It grows every week,” he said. “It gets a little bit bigger each time because people have a good time.”

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Poker rooms could stay open later and dormant jai-alai frontons could become greyhound racetracks under two bills that won approval from a Senate committee Tuesday.

The poker bill paves the way for high-stakes and celebrity tournaments at parimutuels and would expand gaming to 18 hours a day on weekdays and 24 hours a day on weekends. Current law allows card rooms to operate for no more than 12 hours a day.

The bill, sponsored by Senate Minority Leader Steve Geller, would allow parimutuels to host and broadcast celebrity or charity poker tournaments like the ones that have become television mainstays in recent years.

They also could have high-stakes tournaments in which up to 1,000 players each pay up to $10,000 in entry fees.

ILLEGAL IN FLORIDA

“You have tournaments that are spread across the world, in Las Vegas, Atlantic City, but currently those tournaments are illegal in Florida,” said Geller, a Hallandale Beach Democrat. “We think this is a great way of generating free publicity for the state.”

The high-stakes tournaments would be allowed twice a year, and the charity or celebrity tournaments would be allowed six times a year under Geller’s bill.

The legislation requires parimutuel facilities to give at least 70 percent of proceeds from the celebrity events to qualified charities.

Geller attempted to pass similar legislation about expanding card room hours last year, but he said the measure failed in the House.

The Senate Regulated Industries Committee voted 8-2 in favor of the bill, which now faces two more committees.

A House companion measure has not yet been heard by any panels in that chamber.

A separate bill sponsored by state Sen. Dave Aronberg, a Greenacres Democrat, won 10-0 approval from the Regulated Industries Committee on Tuesday.

Aronberg’s bill would allow some jai-alai frontons to convert their parimutuel permits to greyhound racing, so long as the facilities have not hosted any jai-alai games within 10 years.

There are other criteria jai-alai facilities must meet in order to be considered for the dog-racing permit, including having no more than two parimutuels in the county.

As a result, the only facilities that would be eligible are Palm Beach Jai-Alai, Volusia Jai-Alai and Tampa Jai-Alai.

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The nation’s poker players are enlisting lawyers to keep them from running afoul of gambling laws.

A group called the Poker Players Alliance started operating a Litigation Support Network last week.

The alliance gives members free referrals to lawyers who can advise them on how to avoid overstepping legal limits while betting on their poker games.

“With the myriad local, state and federal laws impacting poker, the Litigation Support Network is an important service that our members can and should use,” said former New York Sen. Alfonse M. D’Amato, chairman of the Poker Players Alliance.

The nonprofit group claims to have nearly a million members nationwide.

Members play their games at private homes, taverns, charity events or over the Internet.

As long as they do not bet money, no state law allows for prosecution of poker players. Even if they gamble with only small amounts of money between friends in private games, there is almost no chance of prosecution.

But when the level of gambling could be considered a business, state and federal laws either require a license or forbid it outright.

That’s where the Litigation Support Network comes in. The Poker Players Alliance wants poker players to know when they step over the line to operating a business.

“The patchwork of state and local laws relating to poker is leaving [Poker Players Alliance] members confused about what is legal and what is illegal,” said Patrick Fleming, a lawyer who leads the Litigation Support Network.

The proliferation of online poker games and gambling has led to more police raids of suspected gamblers, according to the alliance.

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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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