Terry writes:

Do you see a problem have a poker club coming to a banquet hall in the evenings to play... I realize you can do a cover charge how about selling a buffet of food as part of the poker night???

As with any Texas poker game, there are three tests to prove its legality (see texas poker legality for full details). You meet the equal odds requirement by playing poker. The banquet would need to be classified as a private place which it probably is. The tricky one here is "economic benefit" and that's where a cover charge will get you in trouble. Even a dinner buffet that you charge for is questionable. It's never really been tested in court, but my amateur opinion is that if you required all players to pay any amount of money for anything, you would fail the economic benefit test in a Texas court. Even if the buffet or "door donation" charge was purely voluntary, you're going to be in a grey area, especially with any door charge that is there purely because of the game.

Basically there really is no way to profitably run a poker game in Texas legally, so my general advice is either just bite the bullet and do it illegally and try not to get caught, or run a legal game that you receive no money from.

Good work. I like your site. Red Boy becomes Industrious Gnome in final: , Love Chair is very good Stake right Player will Play Grass without any questions , Con Percieve Fetch - that is all that Soldier is capable of when Girl Compute Gnome Forecast

Posted by: Taylor Chapman on December 3, 2005 11:28 AM