FLORIDA ALLOWING POKER GAME STAKES TO BE RAISED IN JULY!

[NY60]

[ QUOTE ]
But don't you think that the Tribe has been clearly flaunting FL law & the IGRA provisions WRT hours of operation (24/7) and stakes ($100 to $1k STTs) ?

If what you are saying is true, then it seems to me that FL should have contested this already ... and it seems to me that the Tribe is only marginally giving lip service to FL poker law to "keep the peace," most likely via some form of temporary backroom deal.

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You are absolutely right.

I have been saying this since the first day the limits went to $2 and they offered NL tourneys with $140+ buyins.

You have to remember that when it comes to the tribe, enforcement is always a very very hot political issue.

When I was a young pup, I worked as a clerk in the NYS Attorney Generals Office in Albany NY. The then Governor Mario Cuomo was having a dispute with the Seneca Indians near Niagara Falls over the cigarette tax. The Governor actually activated the NYS National Guard and had the reservation surrounded with road blocks for weeks. Nothing moved in or out except for essentials.

When it comes to a tribe (and don't hold me to this because no one has paid me to research this either), I don't think the State police can conduct a raid. That would probably amount to an invasion with the State facing steep financial penalties in Federal Court. I remember some time ago that the Seminole tribal leader was wanted by police for a crime and he hide on the reservation for almost a year before they caught him off the reservation.

I guess what I am trying to say is that when we are dealing with the interpretation of this poker statute we have to seperate the tribe from the pari-mutuels.

I don't think the pari-mutuels are going to push too hard especially since no one can justify the drastic differences between allowing a LIMIT cash player to lose a maximum $80 on one poker hand while at the same time allowing a NL cash player to lose $8000 on a single hand. There simply is no ambiguity in the effect of a broader reading of the statute.

[facepull]

why not do a $100 buyin $200 max buyin 1/2 no limit then? also what happens when 2 stacks who bought in for the 100, get the stacks up to several hundred then go at it heads up? one of them is gonna lose more then 100 right? once again florida lawmakers leave humongous loopholes in laws they pass without really thinking about what they are passing

[NY60]

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I think that intent isn't going to be relevant. A court is going to have to make a ruling based upon the plain meaning of the statute. "Intent" only becomes relevant if the plain meaning is unambiguous. It isn't.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not sure I understand what you mean here.

If the plain meaning is "unambiguous" then there is no doubt as to the plain meaning.

It seems that you are saying it isn't - i.e., that the plain meaning is ambiguous (unless this is just a typo).

Besides, "intent" is always always always the core issue when dealing with statutory construction.

[Truthiness24]

Absolutely.

[ QUOTE ]
I guess what I am trying to say is that when we are dealing with the interpretation of this poker statute we have to seperate the tribe from the pari-mutuels.

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[NY60]

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also what happens when 2 stacks who bought in for the 100, get the stacks up to several hundred then go at it heads up? one of them is gonna lose more then 100 right? once again florida lawmakers leave humongous loopholes in laws they pass without really thinking about what they are passing

[/ QUOTE ]

You raise a very very good issue that no one has yet talked about.

I guess the only justification is that when two stacks buyin for $100 and build their stacks up to $800 each and then go heads up (without a chopped pot), then the loser is still only out the $100 he/she came into the game with.

This argument of course presupposes that chips are not yet "money" in the pocket of the player until cashed in for good old green backs which is a very very weak argument making this a very very interesting issue that the Courts may have to deal with.

Excellent point!

[Truthiness24]

[ QUOTE ]
why not do a $100 buyin $200 max buyin 1/2 no limit then? also what happens when 2 stacks who bought in for the 100, get the stacks up to several hundred then go at it heads up? one of them is gonna lose more then 100 right? once again florida lawmakers leave humongous loopholes in laws they pass without really thinking about what they are passing

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, they don't think. That's why they're legislators. We smear lipstick on the pig to get it elected, and then the staffs, attorneys, and lobbyists do all of the heavy lifting. (Mostly.) Unless they read this board, they probably don't even know what they've done yet. Unless they do. [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

And as for your "why not" hypothetical, I think that they can do what you say, but if they can, they can do just about anything else WRT limits too. It's really all about what one track has the stones to try to get a leg up on the others.

I really don't think it's that big of deal. If the legislature intended for it to be "CAP NL" then they would have said so. This is a non-issue IMO.

I know that we're happy to be getting what we are getting, but I'm starting to think that we shouldn't necessarily stop there. This is a boon to some of us. It is in our nature, isn't it, to push when we know we have an advantage?

That said, if I was setting strategy on this, it would be to lay low until the legislative session ends (so that they can't change what they've done) and then make a big stink about it when the administrative rules are made in June.

[Truthiness24]

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Quote:
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I think that intent isn't going to be relevant. A court is going to have to make a ruling based upon the plain meaning of the statute. "Intent" only becomes relevant if the plain meaning is unambiguous. It isn't.


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I'm not sure I understand what you mean here.

If the plain meaning is "unambiguous" then there is no doubt as to the plain meaning.

It seems that you are saying it isn't - i.e., that the plain meaning is ambiguous (unless this is just a typo).

Besides, "intent" is always always always the core issue when dealing with statutory construction.


[/ QUOTE ]

Intent only becomes an issue when the "plain meaning" is unclear or ambiguous. I don't think that it is. "Maximum required buy-in" is exactly what it says.

I don't have a monopoly on that which is right, FWIW. I invite someone (or many people) to put on the black hat of the moral crusaders of religious right and big-daddy government (the bad guys in our scenario) and make an argument from within the four corners of SB 752 that the "plain meaning" of the statute WRT "maximum required buy-in" is somehow unclear or ambiguous and that we need to look at intent.

And THEN, can you show what exactly the intent was otherwise?

[Mendacious]

FYI, I visited HR today. Just about every table was in use, mostly from the crappy 1/2 and 2/2 hold-em games.

I asked the floor person when they would be introducing NL cash games and he was totally clueless. Unless the rake is better, I would not automatically assume that they will be encouraging a mass switch to NLHE cash games from the limit games where they steadily rake $5 off the table hand after hand. There is a lot of Fold-em in NL, I am not sure that it is a more lucrative game for the house. Obviously a 5$ bet limit game would increase their take though.

[Truthiness24]

I was in there yesterday (Tampa), and the floor said flatly, "July 1st." She also said that she had no idea what specifically was going to happen, but that it would be July 1st.

I also noticed that they are building some 2 story addition-type thing on the south edge of the property. Could they be ... expanding?

[Atomic]

HR Tampa IS expanding - addding a high end steak joint, more convention space and a small events center for boxing and concerts.