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Front Page Poker

Comments (4)
by , Jan 25, 2009 | 9:43 am

First, my apologies to any loyal Pokeratizens who may or may not be run out of business in a fully legal poker environ. You know I respect (most of) your game(s) … the Morning News called asking for my informed opinion, and I shared it with the reporter. It seemed like she was unbiased and getting our points — raids+robberies+I-35=bad — but you never know with real journos … there’s always a few quotes that can be taken out of context and/or used against you if they have an agenda. But I decided to take the risk … and I think I’m happy with the results.

For those who don’t know what I’m talking about … click here to read the story about efforts to legalize poker in Texas that appeared on the front page of today’s (Sunday) DMN.

Be sure to read the comments, too … 35 of them so far. They are overall very encouraging, particularly because much of the support seems to come from people who care more about proper Texas governance than they do poker. (It certainly doesn’t appear that any representatives will lose any votes over supporting this issue.)

And, of course, if you haven’t sent your email to Joe Straus et al. yet … well you suck here’s the link:

Support legal poker in Texas.


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  • http://pokerati.com/?author=117 California Jen

    Great article! I liked the placement of your quotes in there, Dan.

  • http://yestbay1poker.blogspot.com yestbay1

    I was pleasantly shocked to see the article when I opened my paper this morning. I thought it was pretty well done, although they played up the aspects of the underground dangers of the current poker scene more than I would have liked. They also didn’t play up the revenue generation, and revenue retention from neighboring states, angles as much as I would have preferred. Still, front page exposure with a fairly positive tone is great to have. Let’s hope it does some good.

  • Ras

    I’ve read HB 222. While it will be technically legal, poker will be so overly regulated and licenses will only be for charity poker, indian reservations and holders of current liquor licenses. And they can revoke then licenses for any reason they think of. It’s made to legalize poker without actually allowing it to ever be played.

    http://www.legis.state.tx.us/search/DocViewer.aspx?K2DocKey=odbc%3a%2f%2fTLO%2fTLO.dbo.vwCurrBillDocs%2f81%2fR%2fH%2fB%2f00222%2f1%2fB%40TloCurrBillDocs&QueryText=poker&HighlightType=1

  • http://pokerati.com/about-us/#danm DanM

    Believe me, Ras, I recognize it’s not perfect. That’s part of why we are trying to get some real boots in action right now — to show legislators this bill is worth working on. Committee revisions, amendments, etc. is all stuff yet to come … if we can get it to that point.

    Even if what passes is far off from perfect, it’s a foot in the right door. That’s how it happened in Florida — they legalized poker but with some odd betting limits that, frankly, made it kinda crappy at first. But two years later they revised the statute to allow for REAL poker, and now that area is enjoying huge poker success.

    They still can’t have big-big buy-in tourneys there, but that will be their next step — saying, “see how good this is going? we could make it even better if we were allowed A, B, and maybe C … ok, just A and B? cool.”