Here’s what we’re up against … I don’t want to alert them that we’re out here trying to muster up the troops … but the “Shmristian Shmlife Association” put out this memo in an attempt to deliver us a bad beat. Also, you can go to [ texans against gambling dot org — alloneword] to see how they are suddenly putting this issue front and center.

The place that needs to hear from YOU is:

http://governor.state.tx.us/contact/contact.aspx

First, a link from the San Antonio Express-News showing that our efforts to legalize poker in Texas are taking hold:

Legalized poker rooms in Texas closer to a reality

And in Florida, which is in the midst of its own mini-poker boom after legalizing the game a couple years ago, is continuing to improve the game, pushing forth legislation to raise cash-game limits and allow for bigger buy-in tourneys:

Florida House plan raises poker stakes

What’s particularly interesting about Florida isn’t so much the poker, but the tax-tweaking related to it. And with that, the ussual opposition seems to be taking a different tack:

The House plans to expand poker and lower the tax rate are paired with an effort to shut down blackjack tables at Seminole resorts.

Fellow Republicans in the state Senate, though, have a different vision. To maximize revenues, senators want to authorize full casinos at Seminole resorts, complete with craps and roulette, as well as blackjack at South Florida tracks and bingo-style slots at facilities across the state. The Senate goes even farther than the House, allowing no-limit poker wagering.

Meanwhile, a pretty good summary of gambling-related initiatives in Texas comes from an email sent out by our opposition in the Christian Life Coalition. And the poli-blogger who subscribes acknowledges that while he is plausibly opposed to much that has to do with expanded gambling in the state, he still endorses Jose Menendez’s HB 222:

Of all the various gambling expansion options I’ve seen, allowing for poker seems to me to be the most sensible and least potentially harmful. Plus, as a bridge player who has had the chance to play for money legally, I think poker is a legitimate game of skill and should be treated as such. In fact, poker players in Pennsylvania and South Carolina recently won court rulings that agreed poker is a game of skill. As such, it’s not clear to me that the AG’s opinion would agree with the CLC about the inherent level of chance here. Of course, I Am Not A Lawyer, and Lord only knows what Greg Abbott will do.

Yeah. People are starting to get it. Go Poker!

Our opposition to HB 222 in Texas said pretty clearly that their whole argument relies on the skill vs. luck debate. That, I think, is “good for poker”. Because while Christian Life Coalitions and Texas Eagle Forums continue to bring out the same old “but you could get dealt a 2-3” argument — actually, I guess they changed it a little bit, because in 2007 they were saying 2-2 — they have yet to show one piece of hard evidence backing up this claim that it as chance-based as the lottery or bingo (which, incidentally, are both legal in Texas).

Meanwhile, anyone who looks at the game (courts included) and talks to people who have played it for a mere 20 minutes understand the luck factor in poker is no different than in stocks, real estate, Scrabble, or life. But because there are some people who insist on pressing their moral agenda on the basis of a provably unintelligent argument, a software security company called Cigital just released a study of 103 million poker hands to counter the luck claims of the people who insist on using just two:

http://www.cigital.com/resources/poker/100M-Hand-AnalysisReport.pdf

A synopsis of their findings:

Cigital will release a report outlining a study of 103 million hands of Texas Hold ‘Em, which includes compelling statistics showing the outcomes of the games are largely determined by the players’ decisions rather than chance. The results of this study are of great importance to the legal community, where many cases involving poker come down to the question of whether the game is one of predominant skill or chance. As a game of skill, poker should not be categorized as “gambling” under the law.