"Social Club" poker in Texas is in a gray area of the law. As far as I can tell, in it's current form it hasn't been tested in court. The Texas AG has declined to offer an opinion on it's legality. Without the AG's opinion I suspect that a local prosecutor (county or city) doesn't want to try such a case and lose because they put all other such cases on a back foot - my guess.

That being said, local prosecutor's are elected and poker games are a soft targets around election times when a candidate might want some headlines to show they are 'tough on crime'.

I have played at three clubs in B/CS. In my opinion, they all operate their tournaments in the gray area. These are generally 'loss leaders' to get people into the club.

As far as cash games, in my opinion, two of them (B/CS Poker and Texas Avenue Social Club) are operating in the consensus gray area such as Prime Houston, The Lodge in Round Rock and others, but not all, around the state.
The third (Game-On Social Club) is operating illegally - again, my opinion.

The "ping" used at the Game-On Social is not voluntary and amounts to a 10% rake of the pot - no matter how they try and couch it. An artificial "player" - basically a stack of chips - posts blinds, in turn, but plays no hands and collects the "ping" that is then collected off the table by the house operator.

I played the cash game at Game-On Social Club once and won't be back.

MaximusDMeridius said:

---

If I offer the same thing at my house, is it illegal?

What if I say I want an AMZ gift card instead?

Or all winnings are paid out in AMZ gift cards?

---

The house (yours included) can not take a rake, or percent of the bet amount. I understand they can charge each guest an entry fee, require drink purchases, or even an hourly fee.

The current 'gray area' that makes poker legal and thrive in Texas is very simple - no rake... as other have stated.

A 'rake' is when a forced (involuntary) amount is taken from the pot and kept by the house/dealer.

The 'legal' very well established houses across Texas are currently running 'legal' by charging a :

1. Monthly fee or Daily fee as a MEMBERSHIP FEE

2. An hourly fee as a SEAT LICENSE FEE (cash games)
3. A fixed tournament fee (to cover house/dealer fees, on tournaments)

That's it. You can't do weird cup-and-ball renaming things and pretend something isn't what it is. What Game On was (and still is?) doing as stated in this thread is 100% illegal and is a rake, regardless of what they want to call it. A "ping" is poker is typically when one player gives another play a chip(s). But in this new 'legal' poker, players can no longer swap chips between each other in 'ping' form - and can ONLY do cash. Chip's can't leave the table unless you're getting up and cashing out.

To whit - if a friend at the game walks up and says he's busted out and needs $100 bucks, you can't give him $100 in chips off your chip stack, no matter how much you have in front of you. You MUST get it in cash out of your wallet. That means no, you can't take 100 off the table, go to the change cage, cash out $100 in chips and then give him the $100 in cash.

The current laws are VERY clear about this.

The Asst. AG is very pro-poker as are other certain people in the business. In a very smart move, back in like 2017, SA Card House in San Antonio, and Texas Card House (Austin at the time, original owner) sued each other in a strategic move to get clarification and thus form a 'stay' on the current gray laws that allow the above... then it got delayed, delayed, delayed and delayed in a type of strategic way to keep the houses open and the games flowing and even to this day, this has not been addressed in courts.

This above, my friends, is the truth.

There are a few houses here in SA that recently made house rules that players much use cash, not their chips, if they want to do 'prop bets' aka 'side bets' which a lot of the upper-level more wealthy players do... like 'red or black dominate on the flop' or 'my chosen card versus yours, which shows up on flop' type bets. The reason they make sure those players use cash, is to church-and-state protect the card house for anyone getting confused on their side bets with how poker is run and the sanctity of what I have relayed above.