A Northeast Florida racetrack has upped the ante in a long-running stare-down with state officials over poker tournaments.
St. Johns Greyhound Park filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the state Department of Business and Professional Regulation, saying the state has unfairly banned poker tournaments in facilities like the racetrack on the Duval-St. Johns County line.
The lawsuit -- filed under the track's corporate name, Bayard Raceways Inc. -- asks Circuit Judge William Gary of Leon County for a temporary injunction against the state. No hearing date has been scheduled.
"We are asking the court to grant an injunction so we can continue the tournaments until this can be sorted out," said track owner Howard Korman.
The lawsuit is in response to a state edict last week banning poker tournaments unless they comply with minimal betting limits in state law. It also represents the latest twist in an on-again, off-again dispute between racetracks and the state Division of Pari-Mutuel Wagering, a section of the business regulation agency. The dispute began in 2004, when two South Florida facilities started fighting informal state guidelines on poker tournaments. The state lost the case, and in November the 1st District Court of Appeal upheld the outcome.
That prompted the state to warn poker room operators about the improper tournaments in November, arguing that without the guidelines, state law is the only other authority on the issue. This month the state issued a letter that tournaments are permanently banned unless they comply with the law's strict limits -- $2 bet limits and no more than three raises per round.
That was unwelcome news in card rooms, where poker tournaments have been an ever-growing chunk of business at pari-mutuel facilities such as St. Johns. Korman would only say that the tournaments represent 30 percent of the games, which customers said was about four tournaments a week. Although poker is still allowed, tournaments have been shut down and $2 bets are the lone reality.
"I miss the tournaments," said Bob Dicks, 64, a retired insurance executive from Jacksonville. "It's just not the same."
Players paid $45 to participate in the no-limit Texas Hold 'Em tournaments and stood to win substantially more than that. Dicks, for one, said he won about $10,000 last year. The facility has been open since February 2004.
The problem now, customers say, is that $2 poker is boring. When stakes stay small, bluffing, going "all-in" and other tactics to psych out opponents and liven up games become irrelevant.
"You're not bluffing anybody for $2," said Larry Zbyszko of Jacksonville, a retired professional wrestler at one of the card room's eight active poker tables Wednesday. "When you do tournament play, it brings the full spectrum of the game into play."
Zbyszko and other players said crowds in the gambling facility's 14,000-square-foot, 44-table poker room have dwindled since tournament play ended.
That's what worries Korman, whose poker room at St. Johns generates the second-highest amount of any in Florida. Records kept by the state Division of Pari-Mutuel Wagering show Bayard Raceways Inc. generated $6.4 million in gross card room receipts last year, second only to St. Petersburg Kennel Club Inc. in Pinellas County, which reported $6.6 million from its card room.
Meg Shannon, spokeswoman for the state Department of Business and Professional Regulation, said Korman's lawsuit was being reviewed by the department's lawyers.
Florida has 15 dog tracks, horse tracks or jai alai frontons that are licensed to operate card rooms, which means this week's lawsuit may soon be joined by others. In the Hamilton County town of Jasper, for example, Hamilton Jai Alai & Poker owner Glenn Richards said he is weighing legal options after seeing his business dwindle in recent days. Civic officials in Hamilton County -- the state's poorest, judging by per capita income -- have been betting on an economic boost from the $30 million facility since it opened in September.
Instead, Richards said he has had to cut the hours of about 30 employees because of the state's action.
"There are huge damages to all of the pari-mutuel facilities, and people are very upset with the governor and the Legislature," said Richards, a Jacksonville developer. "I'm telling people to take care of it in the next election."
Richards and other track advocates suggest lobbying the Legislature to legalize poker tournaments beyond $2 betting, to simply formalize what card rooms were already doing. That is unlikely, however, since Gov. Jeb Bush and the Republicans who control the Capitol are staunch gambling foes.
"That's a long shot," said former House Speaker John Thrasher of Orange Park, now a Tallahassee lobbyist who represents Korman's racetracks. "But what we might be able to do is to convince the governor that the results of this could be more harmful in terms of expanding gambling in other ways."
Some suggest the state's crackdown may be the only way to curb an explosion in poker's popularity, particularly among teens and young adults. A Google search of "poker" generates 202 million hits, for example, and poker is now featured on several cable television shows. Pat Fowler, executive director of the Orlando-based Florida Council on Compulsive Gambling, said those influences contributed to a 22 percent increase last year in the amount of calls to the council's help hot line.
"Kids today view these TV tournament players like they do their favorite sports and movie stars, and they want to emulate them," Fowler said. "That sends up a red flag for us. We don't take any position on this lawsuit or the issue it's regarding. But certainly a greater number of people who gamble means a greater number of people who develop problems with it."
Former state Education Commissioner Jim Horne of Orange Park, now a lobbyist for pari-mutuel facilities in Broward and Melbourne counties, said the state has a legitimate interest in trying to keep jackpots low, but that card room operators aren't trying to violate that policy.
"They're just looking for something reasonable," Horne said. "No one likes to have these things end up in court, but sometimes that's what has to happen."