The Texas Card House poker room recently opened in Austin. Owner Sam Von Kennel said the operation is legal because “100 percent of the money that comes in with the players leaves with the winners at the end of the night. As long as you’re not out with any games with economic advantage or house advantage, like blackjack or roulette, it’s a legal game.”
The business makes money by selling memberships. Von Kennel said members must go through a short interview process before they’re allowed to join.
A former employee at the Texas House of Representatives’ Licensing and Administrative Procedures Committee, Von Kennel said he reviewed the state penal code for gambling to assure his poker house is legal. “Watching people try to craft the destination casino bill but recognizing that major casino gaming is not going to come around to this state anytime soon, I decided to take a look at what can we do. The restaurants have their poker nights, country clubs have poker, so it was kind of like what are they doing right and what are other people doing wrong and that’s how we crafted what we’ve got going on right now,” he said.
