Legality of hosting a homegame online

[DMoogle]

I live in VA. Home poker games are perfectly fine as long as there is NO entry fee, rake, or any type of business going on. However, if there is something like that, then both the players AND the hosts can get into tons of trouble.

[+EV]

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I am not certain what you are looking for, however, legalities need to be addressed in the state by someone from that state.

All we (I) can offer here is information, for legal advice, consult an attorney in NY for NY.

As to the Virginia info, well, that is contained in the newspaper accounts.

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well, I would give no advice either way, as you can read (the portsmouth artcles) there is no clear cut yes / no.

obg

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OK. Well lets assume that the home game were to be in any other state in the US where there is not directly a law making it illegal. Lets say NY for example. I am pretty sure that you can play poker in a home game with no rake in NY. So if we were all in NY would we be able to do this?

+EV

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I will show you my hand then since I am being less than forthcoming with all details.

My origional interest in this idea started from the exact question that I have put forth. Could this game be run legally in VA. I have a friend who proposed it for our home game.

However, this question got me thinking about the larger context. I am curious whether a poker room client could be run from inside the US to any and all customers from the united states as long as it did not charge for a rake and was legal in the state of the player as well as the state of the operator.

I am interested in the "What-if?" aspect of this since I believe that the operator could find may ways to profit (advertising or interest on the deposited monies) without directly charging rake. I feel like from what little I know, as long as players were blocked from any state that specifically disallows internet poker play, this could be a viable business as well as 100% legal.

So now that I have put out all the exact details, can anyone comment more specifically on any flaws (other than logistical ones like, how do you block players etc) in the legality of a poker room operating under these conditions?

+EV

[oldbookguy]

My only GUESS / opinion is based on the 'SKILL' games sites that offer cards games, they do block states that outlaw that specific activity.

There are threads here on the subject.

obg


[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I am not certain what you are looking for, however, legalities need to be addressed in the state by someone from that state.

All we (I) can offer here is information, for legal advice, consult an attorney in NY for NY.

As to the Virginia info, well, that is contained in the newspaper accounts.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

well, I would give no advice either way, as you can read (the portsmouth artcles) there is no clear cut yes / no.

obg

[/ QUOTE ]

OK. Well lets assume that the home game were to be in any other state in the US where there is not directly a law making it illegal. Lets say NY for example. I am pretty sure that you can play poker in a home game with no rake in NY. So if we were all in NY would we be able to do this?

+EV

[/ QUOTE ]

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I will show you my hand then since I am being less than forthcoming with all details.

My origional interest in this idea started from the exact question that I have put forth. Could this game be run legally in VA. I have a friend who proposed it for our home game.

However, this question got me thinking about the larger context. I am curious whether a poker room client could be run from inside the US to any and all customers from the united states as long as it did not charge for a rake and was legal in the state of the player as well as the state of the operator.

I am interested in the "What-if?" aspect of this since I believe that the operator could find may ways to profit (advertising or interest on the deposited monies) without directly charging rake. I feel like from what little I know, as long as players were blocked from any state that specifically disallows internet poker play, this could be a viable business as well as 100% legal.

So now that I have put out all the exact details, can anyone comment more specifically on any flaws (other than logistical ones like, how do you block players etc) in the legality of a poker room operating under these conditions?

+EV

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[JavaNut]

Not commenting on any legal issues.

But why not find a site where you can create private play money tables.

Then let a play money buy-in of say $1,000 represent say $50 in real money. After each evening note down how much play money each has left and convert that into real money.
And keep a tab on who owes who how much.

Making your own reliable poker client to be used over the internet can be done, but it will be quite a task to do so.

[Dane S]

[ QUOTE ]
I will show you my hand then since I am being less than forthcoming with all details.

My origional interest in this idea started from the exact question that I have put forth. Could this game be run legally in VA. I have a friend who proposed it for our home game.

However, this question got me thinking about the larger context. I am curious whether a poker room client could be run from inside the US to any and all customers from the united states as long as it did not charge for a rake and was legal in the state of the player as well as the state of the operator.

I am interested in the "What-if?" aspect of this since I believe that the operator could find may ways to profit (advertising or interest on the deposited monies) without directly charging rake. I feel like from what little I know, as long as players were blocked from any state that specifically disallows internet poker play, this could be a viable business as well as 100% legal.

So now that I have put out all the exact details, can anyone comment more specifically on any flaws (other than logistical ones like, how do you block players etc) in the legality of a poker room operating under these conditions?

+EV

[/ QUOTE ]

Interesting idea. I hope there's more discussion.

[+EV]

[ QUOTE ]
Not commenting on any legal issues.

But why not find a site where you can create private play money tables.

Then let a play money buy-in of say $1,000 represent say $50 in real money. After each evening note down how much play money each has left and convert that into real money.
And keep a tab on who owes who how much.

Making your own reliable poker client to be used over the internet can be done, but it will be quite a task to do so.

[/ QUOTE ]

For the purpose of our home game this is actually a really good idea. Someone proposed it on Yahoo as well. The only issue is someone is going to have to either be involved with the collection and getting money from people.

This would all be much easier if we could set up tables at real money sites privately but most people don't want to pay the rake and a few of my friends don't like the hassle of trying to get money deposited.

+EV

[techvoodoo]

Why not just go to any poker site, find a play money table that has similar blinds that you want to play (you may convert $25/$50 to .25/.50 for example), then have one player be designated as the banker. This may require having a room where you can password protect the table so only your players can sit down, I think pokerroom.com allows this.

The banker keeps a note pad of all the players who get stacked and have to rebuy into the cash game, and keep track of everyones final stacks who are up. Once the game is over, all players who lost send/give the banker the money they lost, and then the banker pays out to all the players who won.

If someone welches on paying for their losings, well you have to handle that, but if your friends are trustworthy it shouldn't be a big deal. For having to play the role of banker you can even say the banker gets to keep some % of the money paid to him.

I'm sure you could even handle collecting payments via paypal, which will cost a small fee but if everyone is looking at paying the small fee or waiting for the check in the mail it's probably worth it.