Is playing slot onlain online legal?
By Texas law, probably not, since you'd be engaging in betting activity in which someone (the online cardroom) is receiving economic benefit. Therefore playing online slot onlain in the state of Texas in a raked online cardroom is probably illegal.
On the plus side, I've never heard of a case in Texas of anyone getting busted for playing poker online. There have been a few cases in other states of online sports bettors and poker players getting prosecuted.
It's unlikely that federal law covers internet poker; CardPlayer writers Allyn Jaffrey and I. Nelson Rose have written many articles covering the topic; the most up-to-date is Rose's article "Is it a Crime to Play Poker Online?"
That's about all the information I have. I hope this is informative to people who want to learn more about the Texas laws with respect to poker. If you have any comments or additions, please email me. See the left sidebar for a link to my email.
2003 wsop final table
Chris Halverson has posted the entire (454 MB) final episode of the 2003 World Series of Poker broadcast on his site!
Bellagio offering 1-2 no limit
The Bellagio is now spreading $100 buyin 1-2 no-limit hold'em! I love playing this cash game during the WSOP at Binion's. It'll be interesting to see if the game at the Bellagio will prove to be sustainable year-round. It's generally rare to find a sustainable no-limit or pot-limit game in US casinos, including Vegas, because the games tend to be quickly overpopulated with sharks who are adept at very quickly relieving the poorer players of their money. With the influx of no-limit players thanks to televised poker, though, it could prove to be a sustainable game.
Austin poker meetup
Tomorrow night is the next local Austin Poker Meetup. I haven't been for several months, but I'll be there tomorrow. Last I wrote about it was in August last year, when the membership had gone from 10 or 20 to about 87 people in a few weeks. Well, since then the Austin membership has gone from 87 to 251, making Austin the third largest poker meetup group in the US!
If you are in any city in the US and looking for games or players for your game, meetup.com seems to really have gathered steam in many cities so it's probably worth checking out. The meetups I've been to have consisted of a pretty wide slice of people, all interested in playing poker.
Update 2/17/04: the Austin meetup grew to 257 members in the last day, surpassing Houston to become the second largest meetup group in the US!
Update 2/18/04: The Austin meetup had about 15-20 people show up, which is the best poker meetup turnout I've seen so far. 12 of those people wanted to play enough to sign up for my e-mail list, and 2 of them wanted to play enough that they came to my place to join my game straight after the meetup. Another successful meetup.
