As 70 poker players jammed Dave Bischoff's bowling alley in St. Cloud on Monday night, his state senator was preparing for the next step to protect the wildly popular game from the long arm of the law.
"This is just common sense," said Sen. Dave Kleis, who has sponsored a bill that would legalize Texas Hold'em, a form of poker that, thanks to massive TV exposure, has leaped from obscurity to center stage in card rooms and basements nationwide.
"I'm amazed at the number of calls and e-mails I've gotten over this, and not one in opposition," said Kleis, a Republican.
A House committee will take up Kleis' bill today, a week after a Senate committee gave its blessing, having heard no objections to the measure.
The bill would define Texas Hold'em as a "social skill game" and lump it with such card games as cribbage and rummy in which players are allowed to win money in Minnesota. Kleis' bill would permit poker tournaments as long as prizes do not exceed $200. It does not designate an age requirement.
Without realizing it, Kleis found himself wading into a controversy that has erupted in a handful of other states, where authorities have cracked down on Texas Hold'em tournaments on the grounds of illegal gambling.
That was the trigger for Kleis' bill: Armed state gambling enforcement agents raided Bischoff's Granite Bowl one evening last summer.
"Guns out and the whole thing," Bischoff said. "They thought it was a money game and couldn't believe people would want to play poker -- for free."
Although the Stearns County attorney's office decided not to press gambling charges, Kleis decided to go ahead with his bill. "I heard about the raid the day after it happened and I was just outraged," he said. "It was shocking, but mostly I didn't want to see the state wasting its resources this way."
To publicize the bill, Kleis recently staged a Texas Hold'em tournament at the Granite Bowl with seven other legislators. "I play it, but I'm not very good -- I was the first one out," he said. "It's not gambling. It's a skill game that requires a tremendous amount of math, the ability to read people and bluff. It's a lot like bridge."
In Texas Hold 'em, players are dealt two cards each and then use five community cards, flipped over in the middle of the table, to make their best hand. Players can risk everything on a single turn of a card.
Although the game has been around for more than four decades, its popularity has been exploding for the past three years, since cable sports channels regularly have broadcast high-stakes tournaments, most notably the World Series of Poker.
"The popularity has everything to do with the television coverage," said Ryan Pruse, a St. Cloud resident who has been publishing the poker-centered Full Tilt Magazine since the beginning of the year. "The game is one of those things anyone can win, and you think this time I could be that guy."
At the Granite Bowl, the game has become so popular that Bischoff has had to turn away as many as 10 players on Monday nights. "Even though they never charged anybody, it took until last week to get my chips and cards back from the state," Bischoff said.
Pruse and his partners distribute their magazine to about 70 card rooms in Minnesota and nine other Midwest states.
In at least two of those states, Iowa and Illinois, gambling authorities have warned card room operators not to hold tournaments, or have issued fines.
Enforcement actions against Texas Hold'em also have been launched in California, Louisiana, Wyoming and -- of all places -- Texas.
The Associated Press contributed to this report. Bob von Sternberg is at vonste@startribune.com.
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