Billman
08-15-2004, 11:21 PM
The purpose of this post is not to find some definitive answer to the issue of legality (though it would be nice if someone had that info) but to describe a current tournament structure and get some feedback on how we might wish to restructure things to better comply with any laws.
State: California
We have a list of approx. 80 - 100 players who are friends or friends of friends who are on an invite list. Myself and two other guys act as unofficial organizers which means we send out the invites and bring the chips. On average, we try to cap it at around 40 players with a $50 buy in and rebuys until the first break (with add-ons at the break). Normal prize pool normally exceeds $4000.
Invites are sent out via eVite and players RSVP on the eVite site. The organizers rent a conference room at a local hotel. The ONLY money taken out of the prize pool is to cover the exact cost of the room. No organizing fees are collected. Players pay in cash at the tournament and prizes are awarded in cash at the end of the tournament. We usually pay out to 4 places and have a headhunter bonus of $100 for anyone who knocks out last month's winner.
We recently had to whittle down the list a bit as we started to notice more and more people that none of the three organizers knew. Currently we have a system in place where one of 5 or 6 people has to personally vouch for the person being added to the list. They have to personally know the person or can give enough background on the person to make sure they're legit.
All that being said, there's still some concern about:
a) The law
b) Security
Some questions I wanted to throw out and perhaps invite discussion with:
1. If we collected the buy-in online (via PayPal) and the cash never changed hands at the tournament it would obviously help security but does it offer any legal protection?
2. Ca. law makes some stipulation about home games being legal BUT uses the term "residence." As a 40 person tourney is too large for a normal home we've been holding these at a rented hotel conference room. Does that completely remove the legal protection of home-game for us?
3. In order to emphasize that we don't make any money on the games should we collect the money for the room and the tourney buy-in seperately?
Anybody have any ideas or thoughts on this?
State: California
We have a list of approx. 80 - 100 players who are friends or friends of friends who are on an invite list. Myself and two other guys act as unofficial organizers which means we send out the invites and bring the chips. On average, we try to cap it at around 40 players with a $50 buy in and rebuys until the first break (with add-ons at the break). Normal prize pool normally exceeds $4000.
Invites are sent out via eVite and players RSVP on the eVite site. The organizers rent a conference room at a local hotel. The ONLY money taken out of the prize pool is to cover the exact cost of the room. No organizing fees are collected. Players pay in cash at the tournament and prizes are awarded in cash at the end of the tournament. We usually pay out to 4 places and have a headhunter bonus of $100 for anyone who knocks out last month's winner.
We recently had to whittle down the list a bit as we started to notice more and more people that none of the three organizers knew. Currently we have a system in place where one of 5 or 6 people has to personally vouch for the person being added to the list. They have to personally know the person or can give enough background on the person to make sure they're legit.
All that being said, there's still some concern about:
a) The law
b) Security
Some questions I wanted to throw out and perhaps invite discussion with:
1. If we collected the buy-in online (via PayPal) and the cash never changed hands at the tournament it would obviously help security but does it offer any legal protection?
2. Ca. law makes some stipulation about home games being legal BUT uses the term "residence." As a 40 person tourney is too large for a normal home we've been holding these at a rented hotel conference room. Does that completely remove the legal protection of home-game for us?
3. In order to emphasize that we don't make any money on the games should we collect the money for the room and the tourney buy-in seperately?
Anybody have any ideas or thoughts on this?