City’s unexpected heel turn
A sleeping giant since forever, the Texas poker scene has been booming lately. Though casinos are not legal in Texas, poker rooms, or “social clubs” as they are often called, are in a legal gray area, but are largely permitted as long as they don’t explicitly violate any of the state’s gambling laws. And things have been working out great! Poker rooms are crowded, players are enjoying themselves, all is generally well. Except for Texas Card House in northwest Dallas.
The city granted Texas Card House an operating permit, allowing the poker room to open for business as Dallas’ first legal card room in 2020. But now the city has suddenly and revoked the poker room’s license.
Ryan Crow, CEO of Texas Card House, is at a loss, telling CBS DFW, “We spent about two-and-a-half years trying to find a location that we could open that the city approved of.”
That location is in a strip mall in an industrial part of Northwest Dallas.
The only explanation the city has given to Crow as that he is “keeping a gambling place” and thus is not operating legally. But why did the city grant him the license such a short time ago, after he was open and honest about the business and after having adhered to the law? Nobody knows.
No rake, no problem?
As mentioned, poker rooms are a bit of a gray area in Texas. We know poker is gambling, but the issue is not that people are gambling, it is whether or not the Texas Card House is a gambling business. To avoid being consider a “gambling place,” Texas Card House does not take a rake from the games. It makes its money by charging players $13 per hour to play plus membership dues which can be paid on a daily ($10), monthly ($30), or annual ($300) basis. Hence, why it is considered a “social club.” Texas Card House gives people a place to play poker for an admission fee; it does not make money directly from the games.
And that setup has worked just fine for the dozens of poker rooms in Texas, the state, and the cities in which they are located. So it is anyone’s guess why Dallas is doing what it is doing.
District 6 City Councilman Omar Narvaez, who represents the neighborhood in which Texas Card House is located, is not happy about the situation.
“I think it’s unfair that all of the sudden all of these COs (certificates of occupancy) for all these card rooms have suddenly been revoked,” he said. “Unfortunately our city attorney has decided to change the idea of what he believes constitutes card rules according to the law.”
Crow plans to appeal the decision. He said that Texas Card House provides a safe place for people to have fun playing poker and about 215 people would lose their jobs should the venue have to shut down.
