New poker law may attract card sharks to Florida

By Nick Sortal
©2010 Sun-Sentinel
Wednesday, June 30, 2010

A new era in Florida poker begins July 1.

It’s what many players have been waiting for, and it could bring the big-time pros you typically see on TV right here to your local poker room. (So play carefully.)

Once the new state-approved gambling regulations kick in, the biggest change is an increase in the amount of loot you can put out there on the table. Currently, the most a player can buy-in for a “cash” game is $100. After July 1, there will be no limits.

“This is our emancipation,” says Richard Oliver, of Hollywood, who usually avoids local card rooms in favor of Las Vegas or higher-stakes home games.

No-limit poker will be legal at all 23 poker rooms in Florida, based at pari-mutuels with either horse tracks, dog tracks or jai-alai frontons. Locations include Fort Pierce, West Palm Beach and the Seminole Casino west of Okeechobee.

The Indian tribes have followed state poker rules in the past, and part of their compact includes an agreement to continue to match what pari-mutuel rooms do. So the seven Seminole poker rooms also will move up to no-limit. Miccosukee officials have declined to comment.

Smelling the money, poker pros are renting houses in South Florida, hoping to pick off the fish who don’t know how to play higher stakes.

On a recent episode of the TV show “High Stakes Poker,” noted pro Mike “The Mouth” Matusow mentioned playing in Florida now that there will be “real poker.” And Seattle pro Rick Fuller says many are talking about setting up at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood.

“There’s a lot of money in South Florida and a lot of people who just want to play big and don’t really care if they win or lose,” says Fuller, who’s been on Craigslist looking for a one-month rental.

The Hard Rock’s public relations manager, Ryan Rogers, said the poker room has gotten “a ton” of calls from pros and high-rollers.

While poker players are thrilled with the new no-limit law, the average person won’t see much difference, said Nicki Grossman, president of the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau.

“We haven’t seen the needle move on tourism related to gambling to this point,” she said.

South Florida is not a “gambling destination,” she said, so there is no economic impact, nor ripple effect for businesses outside of the casinos expected.

“It’s not big enough to create negative issues,” she said.

Broward and Palm Beach county legislators unanimously supported the no-limit law, but some from other parts of the state didn’t, objecting to any form of expanded gambling. The bill also cemented blackjack at Seminole casinos and added a second poker room for Palm Beach County.

“My view on gambling in general is that it is a vice that I believe society should treat as a cancer,” said Rep. William D. Snyder, R-Stuart. “Government has an obligation to protect people and society from what I think is a very dangerous behavior.”

When pari-mutuels opened slot operations, the Florida Council on Compulsive Gambling trained South Florida slots and poker dealers and managers to spot signs of compulsive gambling, Executive Director Pat Fowler said.

Most poker players are men in their 20s, a demographic that has increasingly called the center to report problems, she said.

“We expect to see increasing numbers of younger gamblers seeking help,” she said.

Younger players get into debt quicker and deeper, Fowler said. While it used to take years to build up significant amounts of debt playing cards, now the average debt of the card player contacting the 888-ADMIT-IT help line for assistance is more than $50,000. Fowler said it was only about $28,000 four or five years ago.

Calls to the help line are up about 20 percent since slots came to South Florida in 2006, she said.

Poker players say the no-limit changes are only fair: slots, horse and lottery players can bet all they want. But poker has had limits, starting with 25 cents a bet in 1997 and evolving to $100 buy-in in 2007.

Local players say the $100 limit warps the strategy of poker.

“The current buy-ins are a joke, said player Mark Bonacquisti, of Sunrise. “It is hardly poker at all.”

Players who have only $100 to lose call opponents’ bets when traditional strategy would dictate a fold. To them, it’s no different than the rest of us playing at home for pennies; we’ll call an opponent’s nickel even if we have long shot odds.

“Most players in Florida don’t understand deep stack strategy of playing with more money on the table. They’ll be losing their chip stacks, yet going away thinking they played correctly,” says Ron Rubens, who runs the Plantation-based World Poker Tour Boot Camp.

The new rules, he said, will create “some really juicy games.”

Card room managers say they are not sure how much play to expect. As usual, the consumer will dictate.

“We can all tell you what we’re going to have. But the question is what are they going to come in and play?” said Mike Smith, director of poker operations for the Isle Casino & Racing in Pompano Beach.

The Isle will offer games with a $300 maximum buy-in, for example, but Smith is giving his tournament series only a mild bump. The former $800 Florida State Poker Championship will go up only to $1,100 later this summer.

“We don’t want to price out our regular players,” he said.

Poker rooms make their money by pulling $1 to $5 from each pot, depending on how much is bet, and industrywide the higher limit games don’t increase that much more. The Isle and the Palm Beach Kennel Club each take in about $10 million apiece annually from poker. The Seminole Tribe doesn’t release its records.

Poker room managers are estimating a 10 to 15 percent increase in revenue, with much of that coming from expanded hours. Card rooms had been limited to 12 hours but now, as part of the new rules, can be open 18 hours on weekdays and 24 hours on weekends.

“We have 90 percent of the people who want to play already here,” Palm Beach Kennel Club card room manager Noah Carbone said. “But if there are, say, three more tables added, they’ll all be pretty big games.”

Card rooms are wasting no time: They’ll start offering uncapped poker at 12:01 a.m. Thursday.

POKER TIMELINE

In 1997, the state approved 25-cent poker with a $10 pot limit.

In 2003, it became $2-a-bet limit with three raises.

In 2007, it grew to no betting limits, but a $100 buy-in limit for cash games.

SOME TERMINOLOGY

“Cash” game: Poker play where the actual amount bet is represented by chips. For example, a $5 chip means a $5 bet.

Tournaments: Since July 1, 2007, the state maximum for tournaments has been an $800 buy-in. On July 1, casinos can offer poker tournaments with higher buy-ins.