Should Texas put a hold on Texas Hold Em?
By Melissa Ludwig AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Monday, January 31, 2005 For Ken Robinson, playing in free Texas Hold ‘Em tournaments a couple of nights a week is good, clean fun. On Wednesday night, the 63-year-old Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission agent sat down to a poker game at Baby Acapulco on Interstate 35, his badge glinting from his belt. “I’m not sweating blood or losing the rent or the car payment,” Robinson said. “It’s basically just a fun thing.” Over the past few months, the entertainment explosion that is Texas Hold ‘Em has spilled from living rooms and kitchens into bars and restaurants, where gambling is illegal. And though fledgling poker companies, restaurant and bar managers, and some officials such as Robinson, think the games are structured in a way that makes them legal, many law enforcers and prosecutors say the tournaments aren’t square with Texas law. “Up here in Odessa, they call that gambling,” said John Smith, the Ector County district attorney. Smith said he
