This interview took place on Horn FM on March 6, 2023. Doug Polk, co-owner of the Lodge, and Lodge Live Stream host Rick Epstein discussed the formation of Texans For Texas Hold’em, a group pushing for clarity in the laws that govern poker in Texas.

Horn FM: There’s a session happening over at the state capitol. Part of what you and Rick are pushing for is the laws in Texas regarding poker to be amended. Upgraded I guess would be the word you’re looking for.

Doug: Poker in Texas is kind of strange, because you would think it would really be openly embraced at all levels, being that it is “Texas” Hold’em. You would think here in Texas that would be completely fine.

The issue is that the ways the laws are written here, they’re fairly vague. Essentially city by city you can have a different stance on what they mean. The way that most of the state has interpreted that is that poker is great here, we’re going to allow it.

You look at places like Houston, Austin, San Antonio; they all openly support poker and love poker. And then you have some other places where there are lawsuits pending. Or maybe you’re in a smaller town, and the police just decided they could shake a room down because the laws are vague.

And really what we want is clarity in the law. To have specific language dictating what exactly to follow, so that poker can be protected here. We’re not looking to expand poker in any capacity; what we really want to do is just protect the game as it stands today.

So we banded together and formed a group called Texans For Texas Hold’em. And we actually have a bill in the House this time around. It’s bill No. 2345; that’s right, an open-ended straight draw. I hope we get there Rick.

We’re going to be doing our best to try and clarify the language in the law. Then hopefully it’s a little more clear moving forward.

Horn FM: How does that work Doug and Rick? There have been numerous poker houses in the Austin area. As you said it’s kind of vague. The house has to get a certain percentage, per hand. How does all of that work? What’s the legal ramifications of; if you have a place, what percentage you can take of each poker hand. How does all of that stuff work?

Doug: It’s a great question. You look at the way poker works in most of the country; you have a game, and there’s money on the table, and the cardroom will take some money off of the table. It’s called the rake.

In Texas, raking a game is expressly illegal. So the way that clubs make money is they have membership fees, and they take seat fees. Anything that doesn’t take money off the table has basically been the way it’s been enforced. Which is very unique to Texas.

I actually think it makes our poker here kind of great in a way. Because one of the problems, if you go to Vegas, the casino is constantly taking money off the table. In our games nothing comes off the table.

So the stacks get really big, and you get to play some really big pots. And that’s one of the things that makes poker really special and great here. But that’s more or less the defining characteristic, money being taken off the table or not. If the answer is no, then at least the way that it’s been interpreted so far in the state, then you’re good to go.

Horn FM: That’s interesting. Rick, you follow this and I know you play. When you hear Doug talk; I’m sure COVID took a hit on the clubs on some level when that was going on. Then you’ve got the battle with online poker, and the ability to do it automatically. What is the state of the clubs now?

Rick: The Lodge actually shut down for two months during COVID. All businesses did. But (the Lodge) is growing, it’s packed. This weekend it was packed.

The great thing about the Lodge is we bring so many people from outside of Austin. At the table I was playing with this weekend, of the nine players, five were from outside of Austin. And that’s just tourism that’s coming to Austin.

They’re spending on hotels, restaurants and retail experiences, so it’s just packed. The Lodge is, I believe, the largest poker club in Texas right now.

Doug: It is the largest in Texas. I think it’s the fifth or sixth largest in the world. And when we have tournaments like the one that we had today; I would say typically it pulls regionally, so we get a lot of people from either Houston or Dallas or San Antonio. 

But you also see people come in from other states, and you even see people come in from other countries. So it definitely helps with tourism. 

But also, we pay all of our taxes, we do everything the right way. And then we also provide a couple hundred jobs to local people here in the Austin area. So we think that we have a good, positive impact on the local community, and we really bring a lot of people in to support local businesses.

Rick: And that’s what they want. They want positive stuff in the community, because there are gambling places that will bring – I grew up near Jersey, and when they started gambling on the Jersey Shore, it got to be kind of shaky down there with crime and everything else.

If there is an opportunity to help out the city in any way, I think you take that chance. I always thought that Austin, eventually, if they did allow gambling, whether it’s poker or whatever, I thought, having an OTB place downtown would be unbelievable. 

This is the 11th largest city in the country. They’ve got gambling in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where I’m from. Lehigh Valley has gambling in it. And now you’re talking about the 11th largest city.

Doug: I like to differentiate us a little bit from just gambling as a whole. Because I think playing poker with your friends at the local card room; it’s more of a gentleman’s game. You have people you know, it’s a strategy game, there’s a lot of thinking involved. 

So I like to view us as kind of our separate branch compared to some of the things that I think do cause problems in the state. Like all the eight-liner rooms that are popping up everywhere, that they’re trying to crack down on.

These are not people that are just showing up and gambling, and in their own world. This is a social event, with your friends, you know a lot of the people there.

We’ve got people who come down to our card room and play the daily tournaments who fought in Vietnam. They play all of our tournaments, and they’re proud to play at our room and have that kind of experience.

I do think we’re a little bit different. Gambling as a whole, it’s kind of coming up as a big issue across the country. There’s been a lot of pressure, even this session here in Texas, to push gambling forward.

We don’t want to do that. We just want to protect the current industry with clear laws and regulations.

Horn FM: You’re being clear Doug, we want clarity in what’s happening, so it’s a statewide rule, not city-by-city rule.

Doug: Yeah, so the statewide law was passed about 50 years ago, and it’s just not very well-defined, frankly. It leaves the interpretation up to your local district attorney, or the sheriff, or whoever wants to step in, they can. 

And the way that it translates – there was a room in one of the smaller areas of Texas, and they just came in one day and said no, what you’re doing is illegal, and we’re going to take all the money. And if you try to push back, try to get your money back, we’re going to indict you. And so they tried to get their money back, and they indicted them.

As a cardroom owner, I want there to be poker here. But what I really want is just clarity on what are the things that are going to be ok or not ok. And we need to have language in the law that is specific and clear, so that everyone can follow it. And that everyone can know what the rules of the game are.