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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
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Up For a Game? Pick-Up Poker Asks Texas

DALLAS (CN) - Don't mess with Texas poker. Pick-Up Poker sued Texas and Dallas in state court, seeking clarification of its rights to operate as a "pseudo nonprofit" organization, leasing card rooms to people who want to play legal "home" poker. The new company says it does not want to be prosecuted, and claims it will protect poker players from illegal underground card rooms and Internet games that rake off money from each hand.

Pick-Up Poker incorporated in December 2008. It says it will charge players $1 per 15 minutes for lease of its card rooms. It says it will provide jobs and will protect poker players in a number of ways:

It will not charge $5 to $100 a hand, as "illegal, underground card rooms" do;

It will not charge $3 to $5 per hand as online poker sites do;

It will protect players from robbery by providing security, holding the players' cash or checks, and barring expensive watches or jewelry.

It says its president's salary will be capped at 130% of its highest paid manager's wages. It will "never provide comps or loans or extend credit to players. ... (I)t will not sell alcoholic beverages."

It says it will assure that its customers are 21 or older and without criminal histories or gambling addictions - though it does not specify how it will determine that one.

Pick-Up Poker, which describes this as a case of first impression, says it does not want to be prosecuted under the state's nuisance or gambling laws.

How about a declaratory judgment?, the company asks the Dallas County Court.

Attorney David A. Tucker, the company president, filed the case pro se.

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