legality of this type of home game? No rake, but a monthly fee?

[OutOfCrown]

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Can the players gain, or is it illegal of somebody wins?

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Yes a player can gain. So in Texas, it is written in law that it is a "Defense to prosecution" if the three conditions are met:

1. it is in a private setting,

2. each player has an equal chance at winning, AND

3. non players gain economic benefit from the game.

(they may be out of order or worded a little differently)

What I find interesting is there's a pretty big free-roll pub poker scene here that basically ignores the 1st and 3rd condition technically. Also note it is a "Defense to prosecution" which means your home game can still be raided and all monies confiscated, and it's up to you to prove you're not running an illegal casino. So far this has been rare in Austin... not so much in Dallas and now Houston from what I hear.

ok i better stop before this thread gets moved to the legislation forum.

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I think you have a typo in your condition 3 (non players must gain NO economic benefit from the game).

At least one free roll poker league in Texas sought an opinion from the attorney general and got it (ruled: legal). The key for those leagues is that there is no buy-in, which renders the games legal under some other clause (can't remember the details).

Coming back to home game topics/rake: -- despite all the Hollywood renditions of dramatic legal cases turning on the slightest nit picking technicalities, the courts will generally take a very dim view of some wink-wink/nudge-nudge garbage reasoning. You can take something that is red and claim it is merely a "very very high velocity receding blue", but that isn't going to make it blue in the eyes of the court.

If the fundamental purpose of whatever fee structure you are proposing is for the house to make money from the poker players, then it's going to be viewed (legally) as a rake. Whether you call it a membership fee, a chair reservation fee, a prepaid jackpot raffle pool, or any other clever scheme -- if it in any way is a scheme for a business to make money from a poker game then it is probably illegal.

The free poker leagues get by on this because no one is required to buy drinks. If there were a cover charge during the free bar poker games, that would probably be illegal. If there were a "two drink minimum" that would DEFINITELY be illegal.