3-Card Poker Could Jeopardize Seminole Compact With Florida

A judge ruled just last month that  “designated player” games infringed on the Seminole tribe’s monopoly for blackjack and other house-banked card games, thus threatening the compact it has with Florida.   

The New Times (of Broward and Palm Beach) reports that the Isle Casino in Pompano Beach has just re-introduced one of the “off limit” games, three-card poker.

A revised version of the game was approved earlier in the month but the New Times questions the tweaking carried out by the Isle Casino.

Old problem: Judge Robert Hinkle ruled that because card rooms had arranged for “designated players” to act as the bank – and required them to meet such onerous requirements as having $100,000 available – games such as Ultimate Texas Hold 'Em, three-card poker, and War were nothing but a front as a card game that pitted the player vs. the house. (Which the Seminoles had sole rights to, as part of a $1 billion, five-year agreement with the state.) Hinkle went so far as to call the games an "egregious example of the card rooms' attempt to evade the prohibition on banked card games."

Solution: The Isle game allows players to take turns as the banker, with the money they have placed on the table being the maximum they can lose. So if an opponent would hit, say, a straight flush, which might pay 40 to 1, the most they could win would be the amount that hand’s banker has in the game. The Isle also requires at least two patrons seated at the table be willing to act as the banker. Being banker is an advantage because the odds are in your favor — but you could get smoked for a big loss.

Supporting the notion that they are not poker: In casinos outside of Florida, these games are not located in poker rooms but in blackjack-like pits, the New Times added.

The judge ruled that the state had violated its compact agreement with the tribe and therefore the Seminoles would no longer be required to pay about $250 million per year to Florida.  The Seminoles are permitted to keep their blackjack tables until 2030 based on the court ruling following Florida’s efforts to eliminate them. 

The tribe paid more than $1.5 billion in revenue sharing to Florida thanks to the 2010 compact.

Florida has the option to appeal or re-negotiate the compact.

- Aaron Goldstein, Gambling911.com