Lodge Card Club Raided / Grand Jury does not indict any Lodge employees

I covered that angle a few years ago on the forum. It wouldn't pass a simple duck test - would customers still patronize the club if not for the gambling the membership offered?

Dealers are promoting gambling.

Your Whataburger scenario would not hold up as Whataburger generates economic benefit with or without the gambling occurring. The law cant presume those people would not have went there if no gambling occurred.

But law can presume people there gambling would not have been there gambling if there was no gambling. Thus the operator benefit is directly related to gambling while Whataburger benefit is not.

It becomes a duck test. Of course since the exception is an affirmative defense, the defendant would bear the burden of proof that they meet the defense.

A tale of hubris. As old as the hills.

I don’t usually disagree with Black aces and have only read the portions of the gambling statutes here but usually the states language prohibits a highly inclusive definition of “person” from profiting from the gambling operations to avoid situations like shell corporations operating the business, not owning the land, subleasing the property, etc. as arguments about making proceeds from the gambling operations as a work around. Dealers definitely fall into this category, even if just making tips (at least they do in my state). We still have charity gambling that gets in trouble for paying dealers and operators.

No I would agree with this also. That was my point, people were saying the “no economic benefit” only refers to participants or operators, and I was saying it is written more broadly than that.

And thanks! [emoji23]

These social card clubs have been operating in Texas since 2015. If the model is illegal, and I believe that it probably is, why has no one been prosecuted? In 2019 when Prime and Post Oak were raided the Harris County DA said that all the clubs were illegal and the Houston Chief of Police resolved to shut them all down. Those cases were dropped because of some kind of conflict-of-interest, but why no follow up for the past seven years even though clubs in Houston are taking a rake, not even trying to stick the narrow loophole? The Williamson County DA has stated that the clubs are illegal. Then why has Wilco allowed two of the biggest rooms to operate prominently for eight years? Some communities have pushed them out, but no one has been forced to go to court and use the "affirmative defense to prosecution" for over a decade. It is amazing to me.

Basically similar to the reason that the Feds aren't prosecuting the MJ dispensaries that have popped up everywhere, despite the fact that it remains federally illegal everywhere in the country no matter what some state law says. They've decided it's not a priority and are focusing on other things. Most of Texas decided this was not a priority for all these years. But now, that may be changing. At least, on a local level.

Brick addressed the lack of priority.

There were rumors the whole Houston “prosecution” was fixed from beginning. The idea was make a charge, case gets tossed, use this to show on the surface that the rooms weren’t convicted. Thus the rooms must be ok.

The fact that some still point to these events as legality support there was a measure of success in the scheme.

My real question right now is why TCH in same jurisdiction is still operating. It has been said that TCH was more diligent in maintaining private place conditions by requiring active membership to be in the room while Lodge required membership to play but not always to be present.IOW at least sometimes you could enter and remain, including get served but not play, wo active membership. Difficult to claim private place if nonmembers can randomly enter and remain and wander.

But is that the only difference? That defect is easily rectified so that doesn’t seem like enough.

One possibility, and only my thoughts, is for some reason TABC thinks showing Lodge had illegal gambling happening is easier to prove before ALJ. Once that finding established, local authorities could use this administrative finding in civil court to sd any room as a nuisance which means pad locked for a year.

This way no criminal court proceedings are required. The level of proof is preponderance of evidence not reasonable doubt and other rooms need to show get around collateral estoppel from rearguing decided law and then demonstrate, with burden of proof now on them, why and how their biz model is different enough to be legal.

Basically if the Lodge simply gets their liquor license pulled, it becomes very likely local DA could sd any room as a public nuisance. Plus even if a DA in say Harris county decides to leave those rooms alone, business get very difficult because land lords and banks may very well sever any relationship to avoid getting pulled into the issues. A bank KYC procedures isn’t going to allow the bank to knowingly do business with business whose business model has been found illegal. All of this without ever going through the longer more difficult criminal proceedings process.

I highly doubt this since I'd wager TCH has likely had more non-members in the room than The Lodge. At TCH their restaurant and giant wall sized tv screen are located directly adjacent to the poker room floor with only a small divider between the spaces. Families with their kids have come in to watch games on the big screen before. I doubt little 8-year old Timmy is a card-carrying member of the private social club.

I brought this up to a guy who's operated rooms in the market and his argument was that you could have a private home game but still have kids present in the home where it's taking place, just not engaging in the gambling themselves.

Certainly will be interesting when April 9th rolls around to see what else happens at that point

This is all semantics and everyone is talking around the actual subject. Stop making it complicated and "loop hole talk". The lodge is as legit as any club in Texas, employing and running a club like any other. They are being made an example of and don't hold the Contacts in Texas like other owners do, don't have same connections with the elite, and have been taken out, Texas style. Round the back of the car park and shot. End of.

I personally long ago said itt that Lodge was one of the more legal rooms in TX. TCH is also from what has been said. If one is more legal than the other I can’t say.

I will say others have said here (and live personal conversations I have had) TCH were generally more diligent in checking for active membership to remain in the space. It was said TCH had always checked membership on entry. Others said, they now have security specifically at entrance to check membership.

Others like TampaKn1sh disagree. But imo even a small barrier could be construed as enough divider to keep the space private. There is no “not openly visible” description of the place. There is this not visible rule in some states including mine but there are exceptions.

Regardless of which is true, I don’t think this non member presence is the big driver of decisions. It is just too easy to cure. I am not aware of any other major diffs in the two biz models (now, TCH in 2014 was different)

The full point is that once Lodge is taken out, the path to go after TCH is very obvious. Now we’re Lodge to make a selective enforcement claim, I doubt such would work in court. But it might shine enough light that the DA is forced for political viability to go after TCH. Depends on constituent opinions about the biz model.

Also assuming Lodge a)gets liquor license pulled (highly likely imo with potential for massive fines) and b) shut down by DA as a public nuisance how does this spread through TX? I would expect some rooms might try dropping liquor license to get out of TABC jurisdiction but are people going to want to gamble if they can’t easily drink. Are other DAs going to use the Lodge. Awe as a means to sd rooms in their county? Will some DAs choose to continue to ignore their rooms? If they do, would private citizens institute civil nuisance actions. Since private citizen could be an anti gambling org, I definitely see this as strong probability.

The more ways and paths I look at it seems the more likely that the Lodge is likely only the first domino. If Lodge goes down, even if nothing criminal is even charged, TX cardrooms poker faces a critical risk. Even in counties friendly to the biz model.

So even if this is only a Lodge beat down and even wo additional govt actions, this could begin the path to end “legal” poker in TX. I am not saying it is, but it certainly could go that way.

So what you’re saying is polk wouldn’t give the county commissioner’s cousin a mop bucket?

I agree that I feel both rooms try to operate as legally and ethically as possible, both companies appear to care a lot more about that than many other rooms in the state that openly rake, etc.

That being said, I frequent TCH Austin multiple times per week, and just like the Lodge it's easy enough to just walk in and move around without being "stopped" to verify membership to the private club.

Now if you want to actually play poker at one of the tables, "typically" you need to be logged into poker atlas at the table to do that, which would require a current membership.

I'm sure there's been some instances where someone was dealt in before they were swiped into a table before, but overall you aren't going to see someone putting in a full session of gambling at the table without actually having an active membership and logged in.

Reading some press, it seems Johnny Grooms was the GM when this went down...He left MGMNH to go to Yonkers Racino (no card-room) in the expectation that MGM would get a NYC license, which didn't happen, so guy must be feeling a little jinxed... Also Knish you have any insight why the previous GM was replaced? I remember a guy from MD Live went down and helped open the room, I think he was a floor or higher.

I don't think someone dealt in before card swipe is the issue. Just another easily curable minor defect IMO.

Now if wandering the rooms w/o a active membership is the same (and as I have noted, I can only go by what has been said which in contradictory for TCH), I still have to wonder why TABC has not s/d TCH. I can't imagine investigating Lodge for 2 yrs and never looking into the main competition 15 min away in the same jurisdiction.

Sure it is possible TCH never had a complaint lodged against it but this is unlikes plus TABC doesn't need a complaint, probably cause, or anything. Just having a license allows TABC to inspect and investigate. So why only Lodge.

Maybe it is just the first step. Maybe because Lodge was bigger. Maybe because they "flaunted" more. Maybe because Doug is more famous. I guess we might not find out. But I would be very surprised if TABC stopped with Lodge. Ofc since once precedent is established that the business model is illegal gambling, any citizen can file a civil action to have any similar room closed as a nuisance.

The previous GM was Joe Strazzera and the Tournament Director was Anthony Chester. Both were let go, I believe relatively close together in timelines (perhaps a couple months apart if I recall correctly)

I've heard all sorts of rumors on both of them, none of them good. But I don't have enough personal knowledge to really speak on the subject.

My own personal experience was that when I moved to Austin a bit over 3 years ago, Joe knew I was coming to vlog PLO and wanted me to give feedback after I had played. I did just that and he was aware of a lot of the concerns already and said what they were working on to address them. I got the impression he cared about his role and the members.

Likewise, the dealers I met at the time were the happiest I had ever met in my life. They said the pay was great, the schedule flexible, etc.

Fast forward about 6 months later and it felt like the entire culture had changed. Joe and Anthony had found a ton of success, but unfortunately also a level of hubris because of it. And from what I've been told by a variety of people who worked there, it had become toxic, rife with favoritism, staff living in fear of being next on the chopping block, etc. The impression I got was that was directly related to leadership like Joe and Anthony, rather than owners like Doug, etc.

I had been looking to relocate at some point because the entry-level PLO game was 1/2 with a $5 bring-in, unlimited straddles from UTG all the way to the button (it could and did sometimes get to $320 preflop) and match the stack (so you'd regularly see 6-12K stacks, and I had even seen 20-30K stacks before)

There was no entry point for newcomers to learn PLO without getting absolutely bodied by the 5/10/25 guys who'd come into the 1/2/5 and jack it up with straddles to make it play like a shallow-stacked 40/80 game. The grinders want to slaughter the sheep, they don't consider the long-term sustainability of the poker ecosystem.

When Joe found out I was looking to relocate and I expressed why, his response was arrogance. "We have the best PLO games in the country, blah blah blah"

Well, I'm not rolled for 40/80 PLO, which is what the games played like. And it also resulted in a lot of Euros and Aussies coming in on 3-month visas who were very skilled. They made the games even harder and didn't bring a great vibe that would attract and retain the fun losing recreational players.

As a room operator, I want players sitting in their seats pushing money back and forth as long as possible generating me hourly seat revenue. I don't want players going broke. But they structure even entry level games with deeper buyins, multiple straddles, match the stack. All edges that funnel more dollars into the grinders pockets and don't do enough to protect the fun losing recs. You HAVE to let them win often enough if you want them to come back. Bleed them slowly over time, don't take all their blood at once.

Everyone brags about bomb pots. And while I love double board PLO bomb pots because players are bad at them, I think they're terrible for your poker economy. Three players go broke, now your game breaks. Maybe some of those players are left with a really sour taste in their mouths because they were having a winning NLH session until the damned bomb pot wrecked them. I'd run flips (they call them racehorses here). Everyone tosses in "x" amount, you run the board and someone wins it. You scratch that gambling itch but you don't wreck people.

The issues weren't limited to bad game structures either. The Lodge and TCH have both done a tremendous job of building their brands within the poker enthusiast community. The overly-serious misregs, grinders and traveling pros.

They've done absolutely terrible jobs of reaching the LOCAL fun losing recs. With 2+ million people in the Greater Austin metro, if you ask most people about poker in Austin they'll respond:

1. There's poker in Austin????

2. Isn't it illegal?

3. I'd love to play, but I've never played before, I don't want to get yelled at for making a mistake.

The Lodge sent out a ValPak ad. That's the cheap advertising where you get an envelope in the mail filled with 100 little advertising inserts with coupons for local businesses. That's great if you're a pizza joint or muffler shop, something everyone uses.

But poker is a niche. Most people get a ValPak and toss it in the trash, so your ad isn't seen. The people that do open it, well, they have to find your ad amongst 100 others, and then they may not even be poker players. It's cheap, useless advertising that isn't going to give you an ROI in my opinion for this type of product.

I had worked at a competing room in a marketing role, but was never empowered to do anything. I had contacted a mailing company that pulled a list within a 10 mile radius of our club. There were over 16,000 people on interest lists for "gambling" and "casinos".

THAT is the market I'd target. I wanted to send an oversized scratch-off mailer. These are your cards, this is the board. Every mailer would be a winner, same prize, different prize, didn't really matter. The whole point was to:

1. Make people aware poker was available right in their backyard, because to this day many don't know (even though we've had poker here since 2014)

2. And to get them in the door to try you out.

Doug and Co eventually ran billboards. But the ones I saw were simplistic. "Poker 24/7 - The Lodge"

There was no pizzaz to it. I'd be putting up a billboard showcasing "$1 MILLION GTD Poker Tournament" or showing off one of the winners of a big event smiling with a stack of chips, showing off his winning hand with the trophy "Joe Schmoe won $128,314 at The Lodge"

another issue with people not realizing poker is available, is the poor naming schemes of both rooms. If you say "The Lodge" to someone who isn't in the know, it sounds like a cabin in Montana, nothing about that name says "poker"

Likewise, drive by and see a sign for "TCH Social". What the **** is a TCH Social?? They don't even have POKER in the damned name!

And then TCH launched an online poker site and they called it...........HIJACK Poker. It sounds like you're getting ****ing robbed! And coupled with the scandals in online poker, that's not really a great way to go about it.

But what the **** do I know? These guys have multi-millions and I don't.

Anyway, thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.

All of this rings true to me, but it isn’t just an issue with the Lodge (which I’ve never been to). This is the overwhelming trend of the entire poker economy over the last several years. Everyone wants to win as much off the whales as fast as possible with no regard for trying to encourage new players to feel comfortable in any game. It’s now centered around much deeper games with unlimited straddles and double-board PLO bomb pots, but it traces back to the demise of stud first, followed by LHE.

I was playing at TCH Spring today. The person sitting next to me ordered chinese food from a restaurant in the strip center. They took down his table number and seat number as they usually deliver straight to the table. Today the delivery guy was not allowed in because he was not a member. The patron had to go to the front door to pick up the food.

They are really spooked about the membership thing and everything else.

What did he order? My go to is the general Taos chicken

I wasn't aware it was as big of an issue (in cash games) outside of Texas. I do know the whole industry is mucked up on the tournament side of things. Multi-day, multi-flight, multi-bag, unlimited rebuys for the first 9-13 levels and top-heavy prize pools is just funneling the bulk of tournament prize pools into grinders pockets.

It's so much harder for the recreational player to have a fighting chance since they're firing 1-2 bullets and have to favor their tournament life while the deep pocketed grinders can take all the coin-flip spots to try and build a massive stack for Day 2.

Can you imagine winning a satellite into the 26K main event at WSOP Bahamas with a $60 million prize pool and you're up against all the super pros who are willing to fire 10 bullets at it? You're better off buying a book of scratch tickets!

It was the general tsos.
Good read.

If you spent significant time in the Houston poker ecosystem, you know the Houston raids did not really spook any owners/operators. Post Oak ridiculously reported a first revenue amount that was gonna raise plenty of eyebrows.

Everyone else in Houston decided to slow grind the revenue on or off the books (whether they were laundering or not), AND pay the right politicians. I am going to assume (as someone else commented) somewhere in this Lodge situation is a politician/lawyer/etc. who did not get something they asked for, kind of like in the movie Casino.

If I played poker in Texas, I'd be tempted to concentrate on fleecing the whales as fast as possible with no regard to the game's future because of doubts about how long things would last (even before the Lodge being shut down).

I think it's within the range of outcomes for it to be decided that gambling law means operators can't take any money from running games, including rake, time/seat charges, and taking administrative fees for running tournaments. What would Texas poker look like if it is decided that rooms can only make money off of membership fees, food/drink, and other goods/services that can be used without playing poker?

That doesn't make much sense. Before the Lodge shutdown we had poker in Texas clubs since 2014, well over a decade. Mid-Majors and HUGE names in tournament series like RunGood, WPT and WSOP had finally felt comfortable enough to enter the market after avoiding it for so long.

But, all the misregs are myopic and selfish. They want to gobble up as much money as quickly as possible and push for every edge in their favor, believing there's some unlimited spigot that can be turned on to feed them fresh losing players on a regular basis.