I wanted to alert all of you to a bill in the Indiana General Assembly HB 1664. It makes minor amendments to the laws about charitable gaming. Last year regulations and rules were changed which prevented people who were operators of a charitable game from participating in the game. Unfortunately they do find a dealer as an operator. That meant that you could not have self dealt poker tournaments. You had to provide nonplaying dealers. I'm the tournament director at St. Gabriel Catholic Church Indianapolis Festival each June. We had always used self-dealt games in our charity games for several years. Not only could we not have a self dealt game, anyone who works the festival in any capacity was not allowed to participate in any of the games. So you couldn't deal poker for a couple of hours and then go play bingo. Technically anyone who worked at the festival could not even legally buy a raffle ticket because it made them both an operator and a player at the same event.
This bill provides some relief to Festival operators such as St. Gabriel Church because it will allow you to play in one game and operate a different game. It does not however have a provision for self-dealt poker tournaments even though last year the law was amended to allow for self dealt euchre tournaments.
Here is a link to the bill...
http://www.in.gov/apps/lsa/session/billwatch/billinfo?year=2009&session=1&request=getBill&docno=1664
A lobbyist for the Archdiocese of Indianapolis has reported to us that he is not even certain that the bill will get heard in committee.
I encourage you to write your state legislators in support of the bill because it will make it easier for charitable organizations to hold poker events. Also it couldn't hurt to suggest that a further amendment to allow self dealt poker similar to last year's bill which allowed an exception for self dealt euchre would be a big help to operators of charity gaming events.
If you do not know who your state legislators you can enter your address at the following website and they will tell you who are your representatives and senators.
http://www.capwiz.com/indianacc/home/
I will post more information as it becomes available.
Chris Young, St. Gabriel the Archangel Catholic Church