Deal Expands Florida Gaming - Any Impact on Poker?

After a quick read of the Gaming Compact between Florida and the Seminole Tribe there does seem to be a few provisions that will affect poker.

1. The gaming age in the Seminole Casinos goes from 18 to 21.
2. There will be 6 high stakes tournaments allowed each year as long as 70% of the net proceeds are donated to charity
3. There is a posibility that the card rooms will only be allowed to operate 12 hours a day.

Two negatives and one positive.

I don't think the charity tournament events will be all that attractive to me and the cash games surrounding the tournaments that usally get a huge boost around the world at the casinos hosting tournament events won't have that boost here inFlorida with the restrictive limits placed on our cash games.

Well, I guess this is pretty much a non-event for Florida poker players but if you like black jack then woo-hoo for you.

Compact link

News article - Deal expands gambling in Florida - St. Pete Times

Crazy NL Fun at the Hard Rocks On Hold

The rumors on the message boards appear to be true. A quick call to the Tampa Hard Rock and I'm told that the games are following the same rules as the pari-mutuels. $100 max buy-in at the NL game and a max of $5 bets in the limit games.

New Poker Law, Crowded Florida Poker Rooms

Here are links to some newspaper and website articles from the past few days about Florida's new poker limit and its affect on Florida poker rooms.

Casino Chaos in Florida As Poker Limit Restrictions Loosen - Casino Gambling Web

Royal rush: New law fills poker room - Naples News

The state is letting you bet -- and cash in -- even more at poker - Orlando Sentinel
Two Pull Quotes

"But at least one local group is already worried about potential fallout from allowing higher bets. The Florida Council on Compulsive Gambling says the higher stakes could lead to serious addiction problems for some players."This type of expansion will allow those with gambling problems to gamble longer and to create more debt, resulting in major problems in their lives," said Pat Fowler, the group's executive director."

"But the notion of fewer dog races pleased Carey Theil, executive director GREY2K USA, a nonprofit greyhound-protection organization based in Massachusetts. He said any reduction in racing is a "victory."

Poker - bad for players, good for dogs. Work that slogan into the maketing mix somehow.

A couple of article about dealer employment.

Here's the deal: Learn how to deal poker -- there's fresh demand - St. Petersburg Times

Change in Florida law will create more jobs - St Petersburg Times

Reports On the Forums about Florida's New Poker Limits

Here are some links to threads on the web that give some accounts of the first day of the higher poker limits in Florida.

Comapring Florida's Poker Rooms 2+2

First Day at Tampa Hardrock? 2+2

Well, Florida, how did the first day of NL/$5limit games treat you? 2+2

New Poker Limits Tomorrow for Florida Cardrooms

New Poker Limits - YEA!

Seminole Press Release. Looks like only the inital buy-in at the Seminole poker rooms for No Limit games is restricted to $100 and then you can rebuy right away up to whatever limit they impose.

Looks like Derby Lane will be the Tampa area home for Razz and Double Flop which should make the Ante Up! folks happy. Tampa Bay Downs will continue to be the room for Crazy Pineapple. Seminole Hard Rock looks like it will be the high stakes room. We'll have to wait for updates from Tampa Dog and Sarasota to see what special games they will deal.

New Limits in Florida Rooms Being Announced.

Local Florida card rooms are announcing their new limits that go into effect on July 1st. Rather than reposting info from their websites I will just post links to their pages as they update their offerings.

Derby Lane Ring and Tournaments

Silks at Tampa Bay Downs

And remember that the card rooms will now be open 7 days a week year round.

What is the No-Limit Limit?

There has been a lot of debate and speculation as to the meaning of the wording in the section of Florida Cardroom Bill 752 dealing with No-Limit Texas Hold 'Em.

However, a cardroom operator may conduct games of Texas Hold-em without a betting limit if the required player buy-in is no more than $100.

The word "required" is the point of contention. Many folks, myself included, who were hoping for a good sized buy-in were hoping that "required" meant the maximum that a player would be required to buy-in in order to sit down a the table. If the law were to be interpreted that way a poker room wouldn't be allowed to require a player to buy-in for more than $100 but the absolute maximum buy-in would be set at some amount that might be high enough to allow a 10-20 game or even higher stakes than that.

But I think we were wishing for something that wasn't going to happen here in Florida. At least not yet. Florida is the home of small stakes poker and this bill was written with small stakes in mind. The games get a tiny bit bigger and we now will have a small stakes no-limit game allowed but the Bobby's Room type game won't be here.

One of the staff analysis reports on 752 states

It allows a cardroom operator to conduct games of Texas Hold-em without a betting limit, if the players' buy-in is no more than $100.

You can find the full analysis along with three earlier ones here - scroll about half way down and look for the heading Staff Analysis.

Even more straight forward is the Cardroom Operations Rule Development Notice that states in part

rules to implement play of Texas Hold-em with a buy-in of no more than $100

You can follow along with the Florida Division of Pari-Mutuel Wagering as they make new rules on their rule making development page.

So it looks as the NL games will be a max buy-in of $100 making anything larger than 1-2 highly unlikely.