Some Little Rock poker players are all in for a new poker room in the capital city.

Around 40 people showed up Saturday for the first game at the National Poker Challenge or NPC in Little Rock.

Before the games in Texas began, organizers assured players of the games’ legality.

The Little Rock city attorney and Little Rock Police Department have argued the games are illegal because they involve risking money between 2 or more people on a contest or game in which one person is the gainer and the other the loser.

However, the NPC argues that with no pay to play, the games are completely legal and give people who love poker the opportunity to play in a competitive environment with cash prizes.

(Michael White/NPC President) “It is just for the love of the game and this has been needed. As you can see behind us, people love to play the game of poker. They don’t want to risk money, they don’t want to go to the casino and feel like they have to risk money and at NPC, and they never have that opportunity.”

Players are offered the option of paying a $100.00 a month fee to track their progress, but the NPC says even those who do not pay this fee are eligible to compete for the cash prizes.

Aldermen are making slow but steady progress in crafting legislation to further regulate charitable gambling operations in the city.

The board has yet to vote on two pieces of legislation that would tighten regulations on gaming parlors, but an aldermanic committee did amend one measure to make the regulatory process more stringent.

Ward 9 Alderman Greg Williams has proposed legislation that would prevent strips of gambling facilities from opening up in town.

Alderman Marc Plamondon, of Ward 4, wants to ensure that on-street parking downtown won’t be dominated by card players, who he said often play for hours at a time.

Last week, the aldermanic Planning and Economic Development Committee amended Plamondon’s proposal so that the planning board must now consider the number of public and private parking spaces available to a gaming facility a factor in whether to approve such facilities.

Plamondon said he wants to tighten regulations that would determine the hours of on-street parking, making it more difficult for such operations to prove to the planning board that they have sufficient parking.

Gerald Prunier, a lawyer for one charitable gaming company, and a representative from the Greater Nashua Chamber of Commerce, said aldermen shouldn’t be too quick to reject new gambling operations entirely.

“I understand the concerns here, that no one wants a strip of this kind of use that would end up looking like Las Vegas in one particular area, but I think we can work together to see that doesn’t happen,” Prunier said.

A representative for the chamber said, “The aldermen who proposed this have their heart in the right place, but we think there is still some work to be done.”A favorable recommendation from the planning board means the measure needs only a majority vote from the aldermen to pass. An unfavorable recommendation means a two-thirds majority is required.

Plamondon said gaming operations have been proposed for at least two spots downtown.

The proposed legislation was prompted by a plan by New Hampshire Charitable Gaming of Rye to open a poker parlor at the site of the former St. Stanislaus Hall on Pine Hill Road. The zoning board of adjustment shot down that plan earlier this year, and the company won’t appeal the decision, according to Prunier, who represents the firm.

Yet, a state law passed last year allows charitable organizations to hire professional gambling operations to help them with fundraising, and many are eager to get going. New Hampshire Charitable Gaming is still looking for a suitable location to open in Nashua, which is considered a lucrative site, Prunier said.

“We rely on any outside service we can find,” Pat Francis, executive director of the Nashua Senior Activities Center, told officials earlier this year. “For these people, it’s their form for entertainment. They’re just playing cards.”

According to Jim Rafferty, president of New Hampshire Charitable Gaming, 35 percent of profits from his operation would go to charity. His poker parlor would be open every day until 1 a.m.

Nashua Telegraph (09/09/07)

At the beginning of the summer, the membership of the Poker Players Alliance sat at half a million. Not bad for the organization which, a year before, only numbered a tenth of that. Congress was winding down for the session and four bills dealing with internet gambling were introduced. Now the summer has come to a close. The kids are back in school and your elected officials are back in the nation’s capital to get down to business. Across town at the PPA’s headquarters, the database of members just passed the 700,000 mark. PocketFives.com sat down with new Poker Players Alliance Executive Director John Pappas to discuss the latest milestone.

“The growth of the PPA is stellar and it’s a testament to the success we’ve shown so far. People really care about this issue and want to become involved in our organization. Michael Bolcerek set a goal of one million members and we’ll keep going until we hit that. Our growth has to do with the PPA becoming well-known through forums like PocketFives as well as word of mouth. People are drawn to our success in terms of getting legislation introduced, recent media successes, and the changing tide of American opinions. It’s kind of like jumping on a bandwagon.”

The stated goal of one million members has been the dream ever since I remember first talking with Bolcerek and Pappas last year and the organization is becoming increasingly creative in order to continue expanding: “It’d be great if we could get to one million by the end of the year. We’re on track to do it. We have three months to reach 300,000 more people. We are working with the leading poker sites. Our Board of Directors is making recommendations about other online and offline communities that we can tap into such as the Ladies Poker Association. I’m also looking to reach out to top poker players themselves. Wouldn’t it be great if the websites of top players had a link to the PPA so people can learn about what we’re doing? There are also dozens of poker clubs, taverns, and places where people meet and play poker. While they might not play online, they realize that any threat to the game is a threat to poker.”

With Congress back in session, the PPA is also following up with members of Congress on interactions its members have had with the country’s leaders. Several new initiatives in Washington are also on the table: “One idea we’ve been thinking about is doing something similar to what we did in April 2006 when we brought in leading poker pros to Washington. It was a very successful event. We brought out our board members – Chris Ferguson, Greg Raymer, and Howard Lederer. This time, we want to have a fly in where it’s not just the pros; it’s Average Joe poker players meeting their members of Congress. In that sense, it’s an advocacy week. We’re trying to figure out how we can logistically be able to do it right now. We’ve also sent out a survey to 10,000 of our members asking them what their interest would be in participating.”

The response from members of Congress to the PPA’s growth has been beneficial to online poker as well. Upon hearing that the PPA now has 700,000 members, “It’s jaw dropping for a lot of members of Congress. It’s even jaw dropping when I say how many are in their districts. I also give them a stack of letters from our members to their staffs. The top issues we’re hearing include online poker.”

I’ve been catching up on the World Series of Poker on my Comcast DVR recently and noticed poker pro Michael Binger sporting PPA gear. Pappas was quite elated: “Michael Binger was wearing his PPA shirt. I’m actually in the process of thanking him for wearing it and seeing if there’s anything he needs. That was neat to see and when I was out at the WSOP, I was stunned by the amount of people I saw wearing our hats, shirts, and more. It was very cool to see someone of Michael Binger’s status wearing our logo.”

Time will only tell how long the PPA will need to cross the one million member mark and potentially muscle one of the four online gambling bills through Congress. Until then, we’ll have to wait and see.

The early success of Pennsylvania slots parlors has energized an
influential lawmaker who wants to bring table games next to the state
– and do so soon.

At a hearing in North Strabane of the House Gaming Oversight
Committee yesterday, Majority Leader Bill DeWeese, D-Greene, touted his
legislation to broaden the state’s gambling options.

The expansion beyond slots, not surprisingly, was embraced by
Pennsylvania racetrack casino operators who say they need it to compete
with other states that offer the full gambling menu. West Virginia
racinos are adding the table games this fall.

Mr. DeWeese and other proponents acknowledged it may be too soon to
get Pennsylvania lawmakers to approve table games in the 2007-08
session, but by the same token, opponents conceded that the new
legalization appears to be more a matter of “when” than “if.”

“I do think [table games are] coming,” said Rep. Kerry Benninghoff,
R-Centre, a self-described gambling opponent on the committee. “I’m not
a fan of the industry, but it’s a matter of doing it smart, making it a
win-win” for both the state and casinos.

As at hearings near the four other racetracks that added slots
parlors since late last year, the gaming committee members heard praise
for the new jobs, government revenues and minimal problems associated
with the casinos. The Meadows Racetrack & Casino opened June 11 in
Washington County, and township officials testified that it has been
everything promised.

Bill Paulos, an executive of The Meadows’ Las Vegas-based parent
firm, said the temporary casino has collected more than $51 million in
losses by slots players, with nearly $30 million of that going to state
and local governments and the horse-racing industry.

The revenue and jobs at The Meadows will increase greatly with
completion of a permanent casino and racing facility in early 2009, he
noted. He said the boost would be even greater if the facility can
include about 40 tables for poker, blackjack, craps and roulette. The
new building will have room for those on the assumption they will be
allowed eventually.

“It’s the obvious move,” Mr. Paulos said of legalized table games.
“We’re being attacked by West Virginia, and now’s the time to do it …
as we expand.”

Mr. DeWeese told committee members that discussion of the issue is
“probably only in the second inning,” with much debate ahead before
passage is a possibility. He noted there were insufficient votes to
include table games as part of the 2004 gambling legislation, but that
could change because of the early experience with slots.

“The reaction among the wagering public is favorable, and the dollar yields are quite robust,” he said.

At the same time, he conceded that Gov. Ed Rendell’s lack of support
for table games until there’s more state history with slots is a
“tangible impediment.”

Pennsylvania has legalized slots in as many as 14 locations, but thus far only five at racetracks have opened.

“I’m just trying to generate momentum, to put heat and light on the
issue. … It’s very important the conversation take place,” the House
leader said, expressing hope his bill will receive consideration this
year or next.

A key part of the debate, highlighted yesterday by Mr. Paulos and
Robert Soper, president of the Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs racino, is
the tax rate that would be applied to table games.

Casinos typically earn less revenue from table games than slot
machines, although their costs of running the tables are higher because
of the number of employees that are needed. It’s thus commonly
discussed that the tax bite from new games would have to be less than
the 55 percent rate on slot machines.

West Virginia set a 35 percent rate for table games, lower than it
uses for slots, and Mr. DeWeese’s legislation proposes a 34 percent
rate. Mr. Paulos said the rate should be no higher than 20 percent, and
Mr. Soper said anything above that would limit what casinos would offer.

Jim Pappas, executive director of the Council on Compulsive Gambling
of Pennsylvania, told the committee that it should not consider newly
legalized gambling without additional funding and programs to combat
addiction problems. He said the state has been slow to undertake such
efforts using the $1.5 million appropriated in the original legislation.

The US is unlikely to back down from its position on online gambling, despite facing billions of dollars in claims. Instead, it is maintaining that withdrawal from World Trade Organisation (WTO) trade obligations to grant market access to Internet gambling companies is the best way to resolve the ongoing dispute with Antigua and Barbuda.

In an interview with the Antigua Sun yesterday, a trade official in the office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR), who asked not to be named in this article, said the US sees its current course as the best way of achieving closure on the issue.

“We are trying to clarify, by using Article 21 of the GATS agreement (General Agreement on Trade in Services) that our obligations should not extend to gambling,” he said.

An offshoot of this Article 21 process is that the US must reach settlements with all WTO member states which filed compensation claims. In May, after the WTO formally adopted the ruling of its Dispute Settlement Body declaring the US in continued violation of its commitments under the GATS, in relation to the restrictions the US has placed on remote gambling, Antigua and Barbuda called on the 150 members of the WTO to join it in filing compensation claims against the United States.

The European Union, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, India, Macao and Japan answered that call.

“We are actively working to negotiate, under Article 21, with all of the WTO members which made claims, and there are eight of them, including Antigua. We believe we can reach an expeditious solution using this procedure.

“We’ve been quite pleased, to date, that the members who have made claims seem to be approaching this issue with a sense of seriousness and realism and that they generally seem determined to reach a solution; and we continue to believe that this Article 21 process is really the path that is most likely to lead to a resolution of this issue,” the trade official told the SUN.

This assessment conflicts with those of Antigua and Barbuda’s WTO attorney Mark Mendel who, in an interview with the SUN shortly after meeting with US Article 21 negotiators at the beginning of August, dismissed the meeting as unproductive and accused the US team of calling the meeting simply so they could say they had met with Antigua and Barbuda. The USTR representative was also present at that meeting and told the SUN that on the other hand that the session was useful.

“There were no specific decisions made, but I think at the end of that meeting we understood each other’s positions much better,” he said, adding that the USTR team hopes to meet with Antigua and Barbuda’s lawyers and government officials at least once more.

The US trade official pointed out that the WTO requires the parties to keep the details of their talks confidential in order to promote negotiated settlements, but said that the claimant nations are not submitting total values to their claims at this point. Queried about the widely publicised $15.5 billion claim being put forward by the European Union, the trade official said that he was unclear of the origin of that figure, which he indicated has not turned up thus far in the negotiations.

He added that all eight countries have argued that they have, in one way or another, an interest in gambling in the US. “Those interests can take various forms and, in fact, they vary quite drastically across these eight members, so their claims obviously reflect the differences in the nature of the way they believe they would be affected by our proposal to clarify that gambling is not included in our obligations,” he said.

The deadline for the conclusion of the Article 21 process is 22 September and that though extensions are possible, the USTR says that it is working towards a conclusion to the negotiation of resolutions by that period. This withdrawal of GATS commitment is being treated as a separate, though connected issue, to the trade claim being pursued by Antigua and Barbuda at the WTO.

Last Friday, Antigua and Barbuda presented a written submission to justify its US$3.4 billion per year claim against the US. As Antigua and Barbuda’s attorney at the WTO Mark Mendel explained it, the methodology paper was a description of how Antigua and Barbuda came up with its damages. The US response to the submission, he said, is due on 19 September and then Antigua and Barbuda will get a chance to respond to the US position on 4 October.

“The decision is made by the same panel that we were before last time, which was very sympathetic to us and it will be issued on this issue before the end of November,” Mendel explained yesterday.

The USTR official declined to comment on Antigua and Barbuda’s submission, pointing out that there has been insufficient time to study it carefully, but the US continues to hold the position that the damages being claimed appear disproportionate. “Our view is that the figure seems excessive, but we’re going to have to study the economic methodology that’s been put forward and we’re going to have to have our own economists look at it and we will have a response to it,” he said.

Antigua Sun (09/06/07)

After more than two hours of public comments in a heated, standing-room only meeting at Orange Park Town Hall, elected officials granted the Orange Park Kennel Club its poker room Tuesday night.

The council voted 3-2 to approve Jacksonville Greyhound Racing Inc.’s request to open a card room at the greyhound racing track on Park Avenue at Wells Road.

Before the vote, council members said they spent the Labor Day weekend polling residents and doing online research on this volatile issue which has pitted neighbor against neighbor in debates of morality versus economics. By Tuesday afternoon, those in opposition to the poker room were holding up signs in front of the Town Hall at the intersection of Kingsley and Park avenues.

During the meeting, Orange Park Police Chief Jim Boivin said law enforcement officials in five Florida cities with poker rooms told him the facilities had no impact on crime whatsoever.

Following the vote, River Road resident Ron Raymond stormed out, red in the face, pointing at council members and yelling “Sell out.”

“Let’s get rid of them all,” another poker room opponent hollered out, before Mayor Bob Standifer demanded order with a gavel thump.

Police offered to escort Howard Korman, president of Jacksonville Greyhound Racing, to his car following the vote.

With the town’s approval, Kennel Club spokesman Michael Munz said, the company can now apply for a state license to open a card room, similar to its Best Bet facility in St. Johns County.

“The process worked,” said Munz, adding that though Standifer voted against the poker room, he appreciated the mayor’s willingness to allow all sides to speak at the Aug. 29 meeting and again Tuesday night before the final vote.

Munz denied allegations that the Kennel Club had already built a poker room.

Many were surprised by Standifer’s dissenting vote because months earlier he supported the request, claiming that it didn’t seem fair that this business needed council approval to expand their business when other businesses do not.

Tuesday night, Standifer said he had changed his thinking and decided he can’t support a business that profits on people’s losses. He called the gambling industry an insidious cancer eating away at society.

Councilman Steve Jones was the other dissenter.

“Residents don’t want this,” he said.

Councilman Travis Cummings, who voted yes along with councilmen Pete Morgan and Jim Renninger, said he was still swayed by Standifer’s previous fairness issue. He said he was saddened to find that some residents don’t have respect for the Kennel Club as a long-standing, good corporate citizen.

“I think that’s unfortunate,” he said.

Morgan said a day in the life of Orange Park won’t change.

“At the end of the day, you’ll drive by the Kennel Club. There will be a few more cars in the parking lot and people will be gambling inside and you’ll go home,” Morgan said. “A year from now, you will all forget about it and be on to something else.”

“Don’t bet on it,” someone shouted from the audience.

“This is just shameful,” said resident Brooke Caplin following the vote.

But Scott Obermiller of Milwaukee Avenue said he was happy with the outcome.

“I think the good outweighs the potential for bad,” he said. “I do respect the moral issue though. That’s valid.”

Tell us your opinion
Send comments to lamar.thames@myclaysun.com to be included on our Opinion page, or write a blog at www.myclaysun.com

How they voted:

Bob Standifer – no
Steve Jones – no
Pete Morgan – yes
Travis Cummings – yes
Jim Renninger – yes

The state dealt a new hand to licensed poker rooms in July and it has meant full houses for many of them.

Revenue at Florida’s 18 state-regulated card rooms shot up almost 60
percent from June to July, hitting what is thought to be an all-time
high of $7.7 million, according to preliminary state figures. Fueling
the explosive growth are laws that took effect July 1 increasing the
betting limits and letting the rooms stay open seven days a week.

Poker receipts at both of Broward County’s horse tracks doubled in a
month, while the Palm Beach Kennel Club in West Palm Beach is close to
becoming the first licensed poker room to generate $1 million in a
single month.

“[The laws] changed the game entirely,” said Seth Feder, a poker dealer
at The Isle Casino & Racing at Pompano Park. “Before it was for
fun. Now you’ll see about 50-60 percent of it on a more professional
level. They’ll come out, and this is what they do for a living.”

The new laws increased the betting limits in certain games from $2 to
$5 and allowed no-limit Texas Hold ‘em games with a maximum $100
buy-in. In addition, the pari-mutuels no longer have to shut down their
poker rooms on days when they have no live races or jai-alai
performances.

With the state taxing card room revenue at 10 percent, the new poker
laws could generate up to an extra $3 million for Florida if receipts
stay at their current level.

While poker’s surge in popularity has helped pari-mutuels statewide,
the receipts at Broward’s three racetrack casinos are a small
percentage of their business when compared with slot machines. Slots
generated $18.5 million in revenue in July with half that money going
to public education.

The higher stakes spurred a noticeable migration of online poker
players from their homes to the card rooms, said Frank Greentree, who
locally hosts the radio show Poker Talk America. The allure was fleeting for some online players who since have returned to their computers to play, he said.

The Palm Beach Kennel Club added 20 poker tables in July to accommodate
demand, giving it the largest card room on the East Coast outside of
Atlantic City, said Noah Carbone, the card room’s director. The room
can hold up to 600 players, which it did the day the law took effect.

“The bump comes from the part of the public we weren’t reaching before
because of the [low] limits before,” Carbone said. “We believe they
were playing home games, cruise ships and on the Internet.”

Poker revenue at Broward’s four card rooms skyrocketed from $776,000 in
June to $1.33 million in July. Leading the way were The Isle Casino
& Racing at Pompano Park and Gulfstream Park Racing & Casino in
Hallandale Beach. Both saw their poker revenue more than double with
The Isle’s numbers jumping from $280,300 to $635,000, while
Gulfstream’s revenue went up from $124,400 to $294,100.

The two horse tracks previously had been limited to operating only on
racing days, which meant no more than four days a week. Both debuted
new, more spacious poker rooms earlier this year.

Gulfstream Park’s 20-table room is in the space formerly devoted to a
nightclub and track officials are considering adding more tables, said
Mike Mullaney, the track’s spokesman.

The Isle’s new room sits in the center of the second story of its $160
million casino building. Poker revenue is more than four times higher
than last year when the track’s poker room was in its aging grandstand.

“On the weekends we have all 34 tables going at one time,” said Doug
Shipley, The Isle’s general manager. “We’ve had to triple our payroll
for poker.”

Even on Wednesday afternoon, The Isle had more than 200 players around
tables – some joking around, others focused on their cards with blank
expressions and the losers waiting to get back in the game.

Larry Davis, 57, of Boca Raton, left the tables at the Seminole casinos
once the stakes went up at The Isle. He now plays poker at The Isle
three or four times a week.

“I never came here before July 1,” he said.

One Broward card room has been struggling with the new law though.
Dania Jai-Alai’s room generated $171,900 in July compared with $240,700
in July 2006. Dania Jai-Alai used to have an advantage over the horse
tracks because its poker room would close only one day a week.

“All of the sudden everyone was running seven days a week offering the
same thing,” said John Knox, Dania Jai-Alai’s general manager.
“Competitively it spread the poker players all over the place.”

Mardi Gras Racetrack & Gaming Center in Hallandale Beach had a jump
in poker receipts from $200,200 in June to $228,700 in July. Mardi Gras
hopes to debut a new poker room in October, increasing its number of
tables from 30 to 42, said Dan Adkins, the track’s chief gambling
executive.

Shipley said he’s optimistic that poker will continue to take off.

“We’re just starting to see the fruits of our labor now,” he said.

A Little Rock poker room will open despite warnings from city officials.

The National Poker Challenge markets itself as legal poker–and it is now set to open in Little Rock in September.

The National Poker Challenge, or NPC, delayed the opening of its poker room here in Arkansas after city officials told them the games would be in violation of state gambling laws.

While city officials maintain that point of view, the NPC now says it will hold tournaments.

The National Poker Challenge calls itself the nation’s only non-gambling legal poker tournament–and with no pay-to-play, the NPC says they maintain casino-style action without breaking the law.

(Youtube Video)”NPC holds a strict no-gambling policy. Most players do, however, pay a monthly fee for statistical tracking of their performance.”

Players can also compete in tournaments for cash prizes.

But, while other NPC franchises exist in Memphis and Portland, Little Rock officials say this type of poker room is in violation of Arkansas gambling laws.

That news delayed the opening of the Little Rock National Poker Challenge earlier this month. But now the NPC website confirms that after working on their relationship with Little Rock city officials, the NPC will be holding promotional free tournaments in Little Rock.

Free or not, Little Rock officials maintain this type of poker is illegal.

(Lt. Terry Hastings, Little Rock Police Dept.)”The Little Rock Police Department has not told them they cannot open the business. But anytime you win things–whether it be money or prizes or whatever–it’s illegal.”

Little Rock police also say they will make arrests if there is any alleged gambling.

A year after he pushed a bill to eliminate wagering limits at card
rooms, state Sen. Dean Florez is seeking to loosen gambling laws some
more — this time with legislation that would make it easier to add
tables at small card rooms.
Florez, D-Shafter, says the change is needed to accommodate the growing popularity of Texas Hold’em.

The
card game is often featured on televised poker tournaments, spurring
many gamblers to try their hand at their local card room. It’s so
popular that many customers “have to wait several hours to play or
leave to go home and perhaps play poker on the Internet, which is
prohibited by federal law,” Florez said in the bill analysis.

Senate
Bill 152 has drawn less attention than last year’s wagering limit
measure, which anti-gambling groups strongly opposed. But activists are
still worried that the bill would further erode a 12-year-old
moratorium on card-room expansion.

The more gaming tables, the
worse it is for gambling addicts, said Fred Jones, a lawyer for the
California Coalition Against Gambling Expansion, an organization
representing mostly churches.

“You can’t give them the
temptation because almost by definition they cannot handle it,” he
said. “This continuous slide into more and more gambling is just going
to exacerbate that problem.”

Thanks to the Texas Hold’em craze,
card-room business is booming, even with competition from tribal
casinos, which operate under fewer restrictions.

Statewide,
card-room revenue grew each of the past four years, rising to $794
million last year, according to the state attorney general’s Division
of Gambling Control.

Still, smaller card rooms are having a
hard time because they can’t add tables, said Kermit Schayltz,
president of the Golden State Gaming Association, which represents card
rooms.

“You can’t expand your business,” said Schayltz, owner of
a small card room in a Sacramento suburb. Yet “costs go up year after
year after year. Give us a break.”

SB 152 applies to card rooms
that are prohibited by local ordinances from having more than 12
tables. About 60 of the state’s 91 card rooms could be affected. In the
central San Joaquin Valley, seven small card rooms would be covered by
the bill — in Tulare County, Madera, Porterville, Merced and Lemoore,
according to the Division of Gambling Control.

The bill would
allow cities and counties with card rooms to raise the limit on tables
by 45% at each room — allowing up to five more tables — without voter
approval. Today, local governments don’t need a vote to expand gaming
by 25% above the limit in place on Jan. 1, 1996.

SB 152 has passed the Senate and is expected to soon be taken up by the Assembly.

Fresno’s
Club One Casino would not be affected because it is allowed by the city
to operate 49 gaming tables. The six-table 500 Club in Clovis would not
be affected either because it can have up to 15 tables, according to
the division.

A state law enacted in 1995 prohibits new card
rooms and limits expansion at existing rooms. The moratorium has been
extended several times and is now set to expire in 2015. But over the
years, lawmakers have eased some of the restrictions.

Last year,
for instance, Gov. Schwarzenegger signed a Florez bill that allows
local governments to do away with wagering limits, freeing gamblers to
bet as much as they want on Texas Hold’em, Pai Gao and other games.
Fresno’s City Council quickly took advantage of the law, removing the
$200-per-bet Texas Hold’em limit at Club One.

Jones, the anti-gambling activist, accused the Legislature of bowing to pressure from card rooms.

“When
they rub up against [gambling limits], they simply change the law for
their own benefit,” he said. “You get these well-heeled [gaming]
interests paying off public officials.”

Florez is chairman of the
Senate Governmental Organization Committee, which oversees gaming
issues. Card rooms this year have contributed $12,000 to his campaign
account. Last year, a group of Los Angeles-area card rooms made a
$25,000 donation to an account that Florez uses to advocate against Los
Angeles County dumping treated sewage in Kern County.

Florez said
there is no connection between the donations and his bills. SB 152, he
said, is a “reasonable” way to make room for larger poker crowds
without allowing for a major gaming expansion.

“The best way to
keep growth under control is to make these very small modest changes to
the moratorium,” he said. “If you go from 12 tables to 16 that’s not
really that big of a deal.”

And, he added, local governments would still have to approve any increase.

Even
so, Jones said the bill “undermines the ability of voters to be able to
control the expansion of gambling in their communities.”

A report
last year by the California Research Bureau questioned the ability of
locally elected officials to regulate card rooms because some small
cities are dependent on card rooms as a major source of revenue –
mostly from locally negotiated taxes.

One of those small cities,
Colma in the Bay Area, was behind last year’s effort to do away with
wagering limits. Card room revenue accounted for about a third of the
1,500-population town’s budget, according to a 2005-06 budget
projection.

Small towns in the Valley are less dependent on
gaming revenue because none have larger card rooms. For instance, The
Mint, a three-table card room in Porterville, pays the city $150 per
table per quarter. That comes to $1,800 a year, a tiny fraction of the
city’s $21 million general fund budget.

The owner of Big Bear Lodge in Brookline wants to expand
gambling operations and needs the planning board’s approval to do it.

New
Hampshire Charitable Gambling LLC is poised to enter a lease agreement
with the lodge, owned by Paul Andres, to use space there to run Hold
‘Em poker games, according to a site plan application.

The
planning board will hold a public hearing at 7:15 p.m. Wednesday on the
hours of operation of the lodge, which need to be adjusted to allow for
the games.

The lodge already received permission to hold bingo
and has hosted games since 1999, according to a report prepared for the
planning board by town planner Valerie Maurer.

According to state law, the games could take place from 11 a.m.-1 a.m. Monday through Saturday and noon-1 a.m. Sunday.

The lodge’s hours now are 11:30 a.m.-11 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 9 a.m.-11 p.m. Sundays.

New
Hampshire Charitable Gambling President Jim Rafferty said the Big Bear
Lodge proposal is different than recent proposals his company has made
in Nashua. Andres approached him, he said, about running poker games in
Brookline.

New Hampshire Charitable Gambling is a new company
Rafferty runs and is backed by eight investors. When he’s able to nail
down a space to begin hosting games, he’ll hire a poker manager and
dealers, he said.

“We have a plan that would put 15 tables in operation relatively quickly,” if the plan is approved, Rafferty said.

He
declined to estimate how much local charities might be given from the
games, but said the Brookline Fire Department is one nonprofit that
could benefit.

Andres and Big Bear Lodge Manager Deb Lefebvre
have been in charge of lining up other charities, he said. Neither was
available for comment.

Charitable gaming is regulated by the
state’s parimutuel commission and has been legal for a decade. Recent
changes to state law allow a professional company, like New Hampshire
Charitable Gambling, to run the games.

State law requires
charitable fundraising firms to put up a $20,000 performance bond to
ensure that funds are available to reimburse charities if an
organization is not able to meet its obligations.

Recently, the
state suspended the gambling license of New England Fund Raising Co.
Inc. after claims it had stolen up to $90,000 intended for nonprofit
groups across the state.

Private companies can keep 65 percent of the money made at the games with the remainder given to charities.

This
summer New Hampshire Charitable Gambling attempted to start poker games
in downtown Nashua at the former ArcLight store on West Pearl Street
and at St. Stanislaus Hall. That plan was quashed by a 2-2 vote by the
Nashua Zoning Board of Adjustment that denied the variance the company
needed.

As recently as July the company was looking at buying Avery Furniture on Avery Street for gaming operations, Rafferty said.

The Telegraph (09/04/07)