How was poker legalized in Cali?

[SumDumFoo]

Can someone give me the quick and dirty run down on how poker was legalized in Ca? I have been googling but any search with the word poker comes back with tons of crap. I would like to start something similar in my state. Thanks.

[Ragnar]

My understanding is that the initial statute banned games of chance. The California Attorney General ruled that low ball and draw (I think only those two) were deemed to be games of skill. Later other poker games were held to be games of skill. So you'd need a similar statute and rulings, or just a statute legalizing poker.

Ragnar

[andyfox]

In 1891 the California legislature passed a law specifically prohibiting gambling and the playing of stud poker in poker houses. A strange quirk in the law exempted draw poker from this ruling. Explaining this law in 1911, the attorney general of California ruled that draw poker was a game of skill because no cards were dealt face up as they were in stud. Draw poker was therefore not gambling and could not be stopped by anti-gambling laws.

Here's the 1891 law:

"Every person who deals, plays, or carries on, opens or causes to be opened, or who conducts either as owner or employee, whether for hire or not, any game of faro, monte, roulette, lansquenet, rouge et noir, rondo, fan, fan-tan, stud-horse poker, seven-and-a-half, twenty-one, hokey-pokey, or any banking or percentage game played with cards, dice, or any device for money, checks, credit, or any other representative of value, and every person who plays or bets at or against any of the said prohibited games, is guilty of a misdemeanor, and shall be punishable by a fine not less than one hundred dollars and not more than five hundred dollars, or by imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding six months, or by both such fine and imprisonment."

[Chris Alger]

To follow up on Andy's post, the loophole clearly excluded draw poker but appeared to prohibit stud, or at least "stud horse poker." When players began demanding hold 'em, a card room challenged the apparent statutory prohibition against stud. In 1987 (I think), a California Court held that the stud prohibition was too vague to form the basis for a criminal statute, in that no one could even remember how to play "stud horse poker." With the courts no longer enforcing the rule against stud, hold 'em and Omaha took off. I think there were various bills to "fix" the statute, but the pro-gambling forces prevailed.

[Rick Nebiolo]

Chris,

It was he spring of 1987 that we first saw holdem and some stud and Omaha in Los Angeles. In January 1989 its legality became solidified through court decisions, and this is when the card clubs went to the unfortunate fixed drop per pot taken before the hand begins (in the small games) rather than a "drop on qualify" (i.e., don't drop unless the pot passes a certain threshold such as $30 for 5/10). Using a qualifier was interperted as the house having an interest in the size of the pot, which law enforcement looked upon as "banking the game".

~ Rick