Poker News

United States of Poker

California has had a rich history of gambling and poker from the first wave of people to come rushing into the state in search of gold after the discovery at Sutter’s Mill in 1848. As the “49ers” moved into the state in their quest for gold, saloons and gambling followed right on their heels and never really left, despite all the attempts to stop poker and gaming elsewhere in the United States in the past 150 years.

Today, California is one of the leaders in the latest boom of the modern game of poker, which has exploded particularly in the past few years. Unlike most other states, poker games are legal throughout California, both on Native American reservations which can be found throughout the state as well as state-regulated cardrooms in county- and municipalitycontrolled areas, where games such as poker are allowed, but some house-banked games such as Vegas style blackjack are not.

Privately owned cardrooms have existed in California for most of the 1900’s, but it wasn’t until 1984, when the California legislature enacted the Gaming Registration Act, that the first modern efforts were made to regulate card rooms, at least on a limited basis. Even then, according to the website of the California Attorney General, the state had little money or power to enforce the new laws until the passage of the Gambling Control Act in 1998, which created the five-member California Gambling Control Commission as well as the Division of Gambling Control within the Department of Justice.

The Native American cardrooms and casinos began appearing in 1999 after then governor Gray Davis began signing compacts with several tribes throughout the state, and the game has only continued to grow since then. With the introduction of Native American casinos, the number of card rooms and casinos offering poker throughout the state of California has risen to 124, according to the California Casino Gaming Control Commission website, with hundreds of poker tables in operation statewide. In the Southern California area we are looking at in this article (San Diego, Imperial, Riverside, San Bernadino and Orange counties), many casinos offer a variety of types of poker for all abilities and skill levels from the novice to the professional players. No-limit hold’em games can be found in many casinos and card rooms while others play only smaller limit games. The variety of poker games offered is larger than most other states as well; while Texas hold’em and Omaha still seem to be the most popular choices, seven-card stud is also available at most casinos and card rooms, and the occasional Mexican poker, Pineapple and five-card games can also be found throughout southern California. Most card rooms and casinos are also open to stud and Omaha games, even if they don’t typically offer them, as long as enough players present request them. Dealer’s choice games, where the dealer determines by what rules each hand will be played hand by hand, can also be found in a few southern California casinos.

Tournaments are as popular in California as they are anywhere else, and as with the regular games, just about any size or skill level of tournament is available to anyone who wants to play. Daily tournaments abound, with larger tournaments usually available on weekends for the tourist crowd, which along with the locals has made poker a premiere sport in southern California.

While casinos and card rooms are a part of life in most of southern California, one area they have been absent from is Orange County, on the coast south of Los Angeles. There is no gaming currently in the county, and that’s not likely to change for a while; a proposal to place a Native American casino and resort in Garden Grove was stopped by the city council in August. Even so, poker and other gaming are still readily available to residents and tourists in the areas surrounding Orange County.

As with most other areas of the country, southern California has experienced a boom in the popularity of poker over the past few years, and according to Chuck McCormick, poker room manager for Ocean’s Eleven Casino in Oceanside since its opening in January 1997, it’s no surprise what he sees as the reasons why his clientele has grown so much in the past few years - and grown younger at the same time.

“For the past two years, television and the Internet have been the best marketing tools we’ve ever had,” McCormick said. “Here, we’ve been very successful from day one, but over the past two years, it’s just been phenomenal.”

As with most other people involved in the modern poker industry, McCormick was optimistic about the game’s future.

“I believe everything runs in cycles,” McCormick said, “but as long as poker continues to get the coverage and publicity it’s getting now, I see its popularity continuing to climb for a while to come.”

California, along with the rest of the country, is experiencing a renaissance in modern poker, and with the largest population of any state in the union, a huge base of local players and resident professionals are pushing through the doors to these rooms as fast as possible, eager to try their hands at becoming the next new poker legend.

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