After buying The Lodge Card Room in Texas, Polk planned to open a new branch in the Farmers Branch.
Doug Polk’s attempt to open a new poker room in Texas was rejected by the City Council of Farmers Branch on Tuesday. As mentioned in the previous article, Doug will not give up and will continue looking for other locations to open a new poker room.
Gambling Laws in the State of Texas
Texas state enforces stringent anti-gambling measures, making gambling illegal unless specific criteria are met. Notably, poker rooms are barred from taking rake from players or influencing game outcomes.
Poker rooms have devised alternative revenue streams, like charging players hourly for table use and requiring membership fees for club access.
Despite these adaptations, skepticism persists at state and city levels in Texas, notably in Dallas, where city council members vehemently oppose poker club operations. Councilors cite resident complaints about gambling, religious objections, and pressure from state casino lobbies as reasons for their stance.
On Tuesday’s trial, Polk faced much resistance from residents who were against opening card rooms in their town. Even tho Polk brought plenty of supporters of his idea; the Council rejected the request.
The Speech
“There are card players all over your city today,” said Polk to the council, “so I want to dispel the idea that this is somehow eroding the fabric of the community.”
“This attack on poker players in general, like they are bad people. I’ll tell you what: some of the best people I have met in my life are poker players. I started my career with ten dollars and turned it into millions of dollars by becoming one of the best in the world. And poker gave me that opportunity, and I’m tired of people attacking poker players like they’re some kind of lowlifes.” After a passionate speech, the whole room applauded.
There were other supporters of the idea who spoke positively about it; one of them was Marcus, who is a poker professional. Marcus said he had to take a daily bus to play poker and spend money that way, so he would like it to be closer to him.
Marcus added, “I know a lot of people here; they see movies where you go into this dark poker room or whatever, but it’s not like that. If any of y’all went into Texas Card House, y’all would see that everyone is friendly, nice, and it’s a fun environment.”
The Opposition
One of the Farmers Branch residents, Sharon Davis, said, “I like to play poker, too. But that doesn’t mean I want it in my city.” Then another resident, Chris Davis, added, “I don’t think card houses are a good alignment with the values that we have as a city,” “I came to Farmers Branch because it was a family-oriented city.”
Other residents who were also against Polk’s initiative said, “Mr. Doug Polk, although you’re a nice man, you can pack your bags and go home,”
The Decision
After both sides made their case, Farmers Branch City Council voted 4-1 against Polk. Council also told Polk that he could have another attempt, and he posted on X that he would be back.
Watch the video of the whole trial down below.
Source of the news: Pokernews
