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

[allbad]

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

[/ QUOTE ]

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.

[OutOfCrown]

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

[/ QUOTE ]

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.

[/ QUOTE ]

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.

[TrvChBoy]

Illegal in most states!

However...

If I were to run a commercial poker game, this is how I would do it. If the game were low-stakes, it would be a hard thing for an overworked prosecuter to take to a grand jury.

I would call it a country club and have a few country-club-like actvities (golf tourneys, pot-luck suppers, duck hunts, canned food collections, blood drives, and full-bore drinking parties with a live band) from time to time to add "reasonable doubt" if it ever came to a jury trial.

On the other hand, if you live in small-town USA, this would be a major bust for the Barney Fifes of the world.

[chillrob]

A little off topic, but since someone mentioned bar leagues I thought I would mention something I didn't like about one I played in recently in Virginia. There was no drink minimum or anything like that, but players who ordered food got extra chips. It was free entry, but this made it kind of an optional paid add-on. Sounds like this would be illegal under the Texas laws, as all players don't have an equal chance, and a non-player (the bar/restaurant) is profiting from the game. Actually as it is not in a private setting either, I guess it violates all three rules.