RECENT NEWS

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 This link is to KVOA 4 News in Tucson which aired the story 7/31/08

http://www.kvoa.com/Global/SearchResults.asp?vendor=wss&qu=poker

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Card room opens as alternative —

and challenge — to Indian casinos

By Brian J. Pedersen Arizona Daily Star Tucson, Arizona | Published: 07.31.2008 

A poker-loving Tucson couple have opened a card room on the North Side, hoping to provide local players with a cheaper alternative to casinos and give exposure to a growing debate over poker's legality in Arizona beyond Indian reservations.

Donna and Johnny Ray Rogers, owners of a local tattoo parlor called Majestik Tattoo and the Blaze Threads clothing shop, opened Club Royale Friday. 

The 3,500-square-foot facility at 2665 N. Campbell Ave. is open from 4 p.m. to 4 a.m. seven days a week and offers fixed-limit, pot-limit and no-limit cash poker games such as Texas hold 'em, Omaha and seven-card stud.

Club Royale is affiliated with the International Card and Game Players Association, founded in May by Tombstone resident Harold Lee.

Lee has operated card rooms in Bisbee and Sierra Vista since 2005 and has been the subject of at least two Arizona Department of Gaming investigations into illegal gambling.

Donna Rogers, who like her husband has been a regular at the poker rooms at Casino del Sol and Desert Diamond Casino for more than 10 years, said the couple opened their card room because they were tired of making long drives from their East Side home to play at the Indian casinos south and southwest of Tucson.

They also became fed up with the amount of money, known as the rake, that the casinos were taking from the pot during each hand.

Casinos take up to $6 from each pot, depending on the pot's size and the number of players at a table, with a portion going to a fund used for jackpots and other special promotions.

"I just hate how much they take," said Donna Rogers, 43.

Rather than rake from the pot, Donna Rogers said Club Royale charges a "button fee" of between $1 and $3 that the player seated on the button — a small disc that rotates around the table to indicate the order in which the cards are dealt — must pay before the hand is played.

The button fee helps pay for operation of the card room, Donna Rogers said, and a percentage goes toward franchise fees owed to the ICGPA.

"Somehow, you've got to pay the bills," said Donna Rogers, who added that she and Johnny Ray Rogers invested about $50,000 in Club Royale.

Along with eight poker tables, the card room features a lounge area with leather couches, four flat-screen televisions and a kitchen area with a refrigerator stocked with soft drinks and water.

"We didn't go on the cheap with this place," Donna Rogers said.

Club Royale is open only to ICGPA members, who pay a $20 annual fee. As of Tuesday, 40 people had signed up, including 27 the night the room opened.

The fee goes to help Lee, a former Maricopa County justice of the peace, organize the ICGPA, which he calls a union for professional poker players.

"Poker is a 300-year-old profession. (A union) should have been formed 200 years ago," said Lee, who has been at the forefront of a grass-roots effort to challenge what he considers Indian casinos' state-sanctioned monopoly on poker.

Lee wrote on his Web site, www.arizonacardroom.com, that in 1998 the Arizona Attorney General's Office issued a formal opinion that the state gaming office was allowing casinos to run poker rooms illegally because raking pots violates state gambling laws.

However, Lee said, casinos have been allowed to continue that practice.

"Casino poker rooms have been operating as felonious criminal enterprises every single day since they opened," Lee wrote in a letter dated June 7 to all parties involved in the Arizona Tribal-State Gaming Compact.

"The Gaming Department, in an obvious case of dereliction of their duty, has neglected to suspend their operation or to formally notify the victims of the continuing felony being perpetrated against them."

Officials with both the Attorney General's Office and the Department of Gaming would not comment for this story, and calls made by the Star to officials with poker rooms at Desert Diamond Casino and Casino del Sol were not returned.

Lee said ICGPA card rooms fall under the scope of social gambling, though state law defines "social gambling" as gambling that is not conducted as a business and where no person other than the players involved in a game can benefit from the gambling activity.

Although players are charged to play, Lee said the button fees don't constitute a benefit because the fee is assessed before the cards are dealt.

"We're not raking from the pots," Lee said. "There is nothing going on until that fee is paid."

The state Department of Gaming has investigated Lee in the past. Undercover agents went into Lee's card rooms in October 2006 and June 2007, and last January they recommended that the Attorney General's Office charge Lee and then-business partner Michael Palmer with promotion of gambling and benefiting from gambling.

No charges were filed, though. Lee said that was because Attorney General Terry Goddard doesn't want to debate the legality of poker in a courtroom.

"They know they can't win this case in court, because poker is not gambling," Lee said.

Club Royale is the second ICGPA-sanctioned card room to open. The first opened in mid-June at Poker Nation, a poker accessory store in northwest Phoenix. Another is scheduled to open Sunday in Surprise, Lee said, and a license application has been submitted for a card room in Flagstaff.

The Phoenix card room has signed up more than 110 members, Poker Nation owner Christine Korza said. She has yet to have any complaints about illegal activity.

"I haven't heard a word," Korza said. "I've had cops come in here and told me they wanted to play."

Donna Rogers said police have driven past Club Royale without stopping, and she said an off-duty officer came in before the room opened "because he wanted to play some cards."

Concern over getting his players busted in some sort of a police raid was the first reaction of Fred Adler, president of the Monthly Poker Tour, a Tucson home-based tournament series that has operated for five years.

But after hearing the ICGPA's stance, he said he thinks aligning his outfit with Club Royale would benefit all poker players.

"I think it builds a stronger alliance for all of us to take back the game," Adler said.

"Right now, we're being taken advantage of (by the casinos). They can charge whatever they want. Here, it seems like we have some options."

Lee said the Sierra Vista card room, which he sold to get the ICGPA up and running, is not sanctioned yet because it doesn't meet the organization's standards for such things as security.

Cameras but no alcohol

Club Royale has 12 video cameras — a camera is pointed down on each of the poker tables and on each of the three entrances to the room, and one camera is trained on the cage area where chips and money are stored.

Plans call for upgrades to the cage, as well as higher-quality chips and cards, and armed security may be hired on busier nights, Donna Rogers said. One thing Club Royale will not have, though, is alcohol.

As a private club, members can legally bring in adult beverages, Donna Rogers said, but she doesn't want that because "alcohol brings problems."

Early reviews of Club Royale have been positive.

"Everyone that came in here said they're not going to go to the casinos anymore," said Tucsonan Michael Richard, 30, who added that he plays poker for a living. He sat in on Club Royale's first game on Friday. "They're only going to come here."

Donna Rogers said it took three months to find a location in Tucson that was both centrally located and didn't cause the property owner to shy away from the idea of housing a card room.

She said Club Royale's location, just north of the Continental Adult Shop, is a perfect fit.

 "Poker and porn — it goes hand in hand," she said.

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- Jun. 14, 2008---The Arizona Republic Article by Dennis Wagner

Poker-parlor operator betting on Phoenix

Defiant former judge continues to call state's bluff

Judge Lee--Photo Nick Oza AZ Republic

A retired judge who operates poker rooms in southern Arizona in defiance of state investigators says his organization is opening a new card parlor in Phoenix later this month.

Texas Hold'em games operated by Harold Lee of Tombstone have been referred for criminal prosecution several times by agents of the Arizona Department of Gaming, but he has never been charged. The Attorney General's Office this week issued an e-mail statement saying it declined prosecution because there is "no reasonable likelihood of a conviction”.

Lee also is planning a new poker club in Tucson. The expansion of his league and the attorney general's opinion create questions about whether more private poker rooms could sprout up statewide.

A former justice of the peace in Phoenix, Lee says the reason is simple: Poker is a contest of skill, and club members who play for money are not in violation of state law unless the game's host takes a cut of the prize money.

Lee operates his no-limit games through a league where members pay a membership fee and are asked to tip the volunteer dealers as they see fit.

The new Valley enterprise, to be known as Arizona Card Room of Northwest Phoenix, is scheduled to open next Sunday in Poker Nation, a retail store at 1859 E. Greenway Road. Lee says he has a franchise agreement with Poker Nation.

Christine Korza, owner of Poker Nation, said that the tentative opening date is next Sunday.

Lee is developing his controversial league in an era of unprecedented poker popularity, with professional Texas Hold'em players vying for million-dollar pots on national-TV broadcasts. Lee says he will go to jail if that's what it takes to prove that poker is not gambling but is analogous to sports contests where winners receive prize money.

He wrote a letter to Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon last month asking for moral support and inviting the mayor to be an honorary card-room manager for the inaugural benefit tournament.

"We ask that you help us break free of the gambling industry and lend your considerable influence assisting us with providing safer, fairer and more secure arenas for our lawful game, its players and our bona fide industry," an open letter posted on the Internet reads.

George Weiscz, senior assistant to Gordon, said he does not believe the Mayor's Office received the letter.

Gaming Department agents investigated Lee in 2006 and 2007, each time requesting felony charges. In January, when a reporter asked about those referrals, Attorney General Terry Goddard's spokeswoman said no action was taken because of a lack of resources. Goddard decided to reconsider after viewing Lee's Web site but again declined to file charges.

Seena Simon, spokeswoman for the Gaming Department, said that a separate criminal referral submitted to the Cochise County Attorney's Office in January also got rejected.

Lee says he represents poker players in Arizona under the auspices of a not-for-profit organization he created, the International Card & Game Players Association. He says the Gaming Department has been derelict in regulating tribal casinos even as its agents seek to have him arrested.

Lee contends that tribes conducted illicit poker games that were not allowed under a compact with the state and collected a percentage of prizes in violation of Arizona law. Simon said Arizona's gaming compact with tribes was amended in 2002 to include poker and to let casinos take a portion of each pot.

Except on reservations, Arizona law bans the promotion of, or profit from, games of chance. A similar controversy developed in the 1980s when about 250 social-gambling halls started up at saloons statewide after the Legislature created a loophole in anti-gambling statutes. Criminals could be found in many of the establishments, which were shut down when lawmakers changed the law in 1990.

Lee said his clubs are exempt because poker is a game of skill. He said games are monitored and players are banished for misconduct. Korza, the business owner, said that video cameras are being installed at Poker Nation and that security will be hired on big-money nights.                 

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          May 18th Sunday Feature Article in the Herald/Review by Sports Editor Matt Hickman

Man on a mission

                        (Photo Mark Levy Herald/Review)

                           

                         The Man on a Mission                                                          Sierra Vista City Parks Director John Startt with Judge Lee

DIALOGUES: Former judge looking for showdown to declare poker's independence from gambling

Commentary by Matt Hickman

Herald/Review                                 

SIERRA VISTA — As the judge explains to me how poker is not gambling, I understand him, and maybe even agree with him on an intellectual level.

Simultaneously however, as the players and dealers ready for the evening’s Texas Hold ‘em event, stacking the chips and shuffling the cards, my mouth starts to water as it might if I were walking past a spinning roulette wheel or a blackjack table with one empty seat.

This is the ambiguous, boggy land that Harold Lee, a former Maricopa County Justice of the Peace, is trying to champion into universal legitimacy.

When most of us think of poker, we immediately associate it with the most nefarious, most dangerous, most historically violent sort of gambling. Judge Lee believes this ingrained prejudice is fundamentally misguided.

“We’re not gambling — this is a sport, it’s acknowledged as a sport and it’s the third most watched sport on television,” Lee said. “We should have the right to organize our industry.”

Lee is not shy to admit he kind of hopes to be arrested for operating the Arizona Card League, which originated in the summer of 2006 in a building adjacent to the Stock Exchange Bar in Old Bisbee. An arrest would give him his day in court and lay the groundwork for a bevy of lawsuits he’s contemplating.

“I’d love them to come out and arrest me, but they won’t,” Lee said. “Poker is exempted (from gambling) as a game. We’re a professional sport. We’ll sue them and make them come up with some theory as to why we can’t do this.”

Lee’s chief nemesis is the Arizona Department of Gaming, an independently operating appendage of the governor’s office whose assignment is to oversee Indian reservation casinos.

“We are a law enforcement agency and we have the authority to investigate,” said Seena Simon of the agency’s media relations department. “We cannot prosecute our self. That’s why we refer our findings to the state attorney.”

In October of 2006, the Department of Gaming sent two undercover agents into a tournament night at the card room.

They filed a 20-page report that accused Lee and his card room partner Mike Palmer, a former state legislator and county Board of Supervisors’ member, of holding an illegal poker game. Specifically, the allegations were promoting an illegal card game on the Internet, a Class 5 felony and benefiting from gambling, a Class 1 misdemeanor.

To clarify, individuals getting together to play poker, or any game for that matter, and wagering amongst themselves, is perfectly legal under Arizona law.

It is exempted as social gambling under A.R.S. 13-3302 under the condition that “no player receives... any benefit... other than the player’s winnings from the gamble.”

 That legality comes into question whenever a non-playing party benefits financially from the gamble.

This is the gist of the gaming department’s accusation against Lee’s establishment. They imply that the collection “on the button,” which is the pog that rotates around the table to determine which player must pay a usually small fee for the next hand to be dealt, amounts to a “rake,” which would be a violation under A.R.S. 13-3303.

This is where it gets complicated.

The button fees, as well as the annual card house membership fee, go to the establishment.

As Lee puts it, this to pay for the chips, cards, tables, lights, rent and so-on. But he makes no assertion that his enterprise is non-profit, nor does he put a cap on button fees.

At first glance, this would appear to be the very definition of what the law is trying to prevent.

But Lee is quick to point out that the fee is never taken from the pot itself. He likens his business to a pool hall.

In a pool hall, players put quarters into slots in the table and a game, which they may bet on legally, cannot start until a player does so.

Likewise, if a golf course wishes to hold a small-time professional tournament, the players’ entry fees cover the prize money. But that doesn’t stop the course from charging them greens fees on top of what goes into the pot.

By similar logic you could liken Lee’s endeavor to an escort service, where a client pays for companionship and whatever happens between two consenting adults is not the concern of the business.

Lee distances himself from that analogy by saying, “prostitution is illegal; poker isn’t.”

The Department of Gaming had no comment to add to its report which recommended the Attorney General’s office file charges on all counts.

“We can neither confirm nor deny (whether there is a plan to prosecute),” said Andrea Esquer of the Attorney General’s office.

The smart money says the A.G.’s office doesn’t want to touch Lee’s case with a 10-foot pole, but also doesn’t want to concede any right to intervene at a later date.

This overreaching state involvement, as Lee sees it, along with what Lee asserts is intimidation on the part of the Gaming Department upon businesses which might want to sponsor or host one of his events, has the retired judge pushing faster than ever toward a day of reckoning.

Last weekend, Lee held his first “state championship” at his card room adjacent to Sun N Spokes on Fry Blvd., in Sierra Vista.

Though only six players showed for the highest stakes game in the card house's history, Lee was able to use proceeds to donate $300 to Sierra Vista Parks and Leisure Services.

The winner of the $1,500 prize was Johnny Rogers of Tucson. Rogers, who owns a chain of tattoo parlors in Southern Arizona, has obtained a license from Lee’s franchise to open his own version soon in Tucson.

This week, Christine Korza will be opening the first Maricopa County version of Judge Lee’s Arizona Card room at Poker Nation on 19th Avenue and Greenway Blvd. in Phoenix.

Lee began his enterprise in Cochise County in large part because of its lack of casinos and also because of its Old West poker history.

Now, seeking to penetrate into casino-laden Pima and Maricopa Counties, the Arizona Card League is primed for a showdown with the Department of Gaming and the Indian casinos it oversees.

Judge Lee’s is probably the hand to bet on.

But to remake poker’s image at large, Lee and his fellow travelers will have to answer a question more philosophical than legal — is poker a sport?

“Is NASCAR a sport?” Lee asks rhetorically. “You sit in a car and drive around in a circle for four hours... I think it is a sport because it requires endurance. So does poker.”

Doesn’t the luck of the draw disqualify poker from sporthood?

“It’s not who has the best hand who wins, it’s who plays the hand the best,” Lee said. “A guy hits a halfcourt shot at the buzzer to win a basketball game. That’s luck — nobody says basketball’s not a sport.”

But for all of Lee’s air-tight logical trappings and libertarian bravado, there remains one problem that stands in the way of winning over the heart and mind of Joe Voter.

It still feels like gambling.

********************For immediate release************************For immediate release**********************

Sunday May 11, 2008
Sierra Vista, AZ

                                                          Arizona Card League conducts their last tournament
                                                 ---their AZ State Hold’em Championship

The First Annual (and last) ACL State Championship was played last night as scheduled. Eight players reserved seats for the $300 dollar buy in. The benefit brought in over $300 for the Sierra Vista City Parks, three times the amount of our last donation. Three last minute cancellations left only five players to vie for the title. Fellow PPA member Johnny Rogers, of Tucson, AZ took home the title and the $1500 cash prize from the winner take all match. The game lasted a little over two and half hours---no enforcement authorities attended the event---as far as we know. However, they were certainly invited.

This was the last event that will be hosted by the ACL. The ACL will give way to a new and more encompassing organization: The (ICGPA) International Card and Game Players Association. This action has become necessary, from our view, as we perceive the focus and efforts within the Poker Industry are clearly in the wrong direction.

It seems that most of the major poker support organizations are spending their resources on the defense of online gambling. This is an issue, with which we clearly sympathize; but it is not our fight, and the association is harmful to our goals. Many Poker organizations, involved in the effort to free poker, receive a good deal of their revenue from the gambling industry. It is reasonable to expect that they will do the gambling industry’s bidding.

However, under such conditions, how can we possibly expect the public to accept our pleas; denying that we are a casino game, and insisting that we are a sport? If the public can’t comprehend the nuances of poker as a strategic competition, what are the chances that they will be able to see the differences between a casino and a poker room?

The ICGPA’s only concern is the healthy growth and development of local games and clubs. We question the ability and right of the local and state authorities to police our game and industry. Our observations lead us to conclude; only the Poker industry itself can police, regulate, and provide a secure environment for our game, its’ players and fans.

We cannot afford to be allied with the gambling industry, which we perceive is institutionalizing our game in their venue. We intend to create a clear distinction with gambling industry interest. To become accepted as a true member of the professional sports community, just as all sports industries must do, the poker industry must loosen its ties with the gambling industry. Common sense and the public will require it.

We also feel efforts to save the game from mistreatment by authorities must be directed locally. Nothing occurring in Washington D.C. can or will have any real ultimate impact on the game; at least for the millions of players being forced into unsafe, unregulated venues, by improper local restrictions and prohibitions. The victory for poker is coming, but the fight is a local one. And the players themselves will lead poker to victory in local rooms and arenas.

The ICGPA will spend all of its resources on establishing the legality of the local games, as well as, providing a level playing field for our professional and semi-professional players. Many of our members have embraced poker as an avocation; the industry must provide for the security and integrity for their games, we must be allowed to operate our own venues and arenas.  

The ICGPA will soon be heading into Federal court to force the state and federal government to cease interfering with our bona fide business, and Global industry. Various jurisdictions throughout the country are violating international treaties, interfering in legal commerce, and misapplying laws, regarding the game and its industry.

We do not view this as a mere abuse of power, or incompetence; we feel it as trampling on our rights, freedoms, and liberties---and with the creation of the Arizona Indian Gaming Compact---we must add extortion to the list of offenses by the State. Our lawful game has been forced, by the State of Arizona's misapplication of its own statues, into their partner’s casinos, where we then become victims of the felonious criminal act of raking from the pot. A Class five felony under Arizona law; and we believe the state is guilty of extortion against the Poker industry and its professional members for unlawfully prohibiting our industry from self-regulating and policing our business.

The poker industry is a major element in the sports and entertainment industry; it does not belong to the gambling industry. Poker is a guest of the gambling industry’s venue, where we sought refuge, in order to survive improper and illegal prohibitions. The ICGPA will work to wrest control of the game from the gambling industry, which has tarnished the sport by turning it into one of their gambling devices. To feed their silly jack pots and other chance gambling events, players have to suffer big greedy paws constantly grabbing money from the betting pool. This is unnecessary and affects pot odds; a critical element of the professional game of poker.

We will be opening new ICGPA Chartered rooms shortly in both Phoenix and Tucson. Visit arizonacardroom.com to follow events.

The ICGPA will become the standard that all freedom loving card and game players can march beneath. We hope you will join us.

Harold Lee---Founder
International Card and Game Player Association “…a voice for the pros”

 Poker poised to make a comeback in Tombstone

One ON One Judge Lee interview (32 min.) KVOA/4 TUCSON, AZ

 "We think that not only does poker belong there, but that poker can do a lot to help that community revive itself." Judge Lee commenting on Tombstone's right to Play Poker."

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Arizona Republic Front Page Article 1/18/08

Retired judge betting that his poker room is legal

Dennis Wagner
The Arizona Republic
Jan. 18, 2008 12:00 AM

SIERRA VISTA - Retired cop Mike Rose chomped on an unlit stogie and took one last peek at his cards, then shoved the remainder of his poker chips toward the dealer.

"All in," he announced.

Another player called the bet. Rose shook his head ruefully, turned up a losing hand and muttered, "He just caught me bluffing."

The exchange Thursday night occurred not at an Indian gaming center or a Las Vegas casino but in a Sierra Vista storefront with a sign advertising Judge Lee's Arizona Card Room & Social Club.

The place, open every night, is run by Harold S. Lee, a former Maricopa County justice of the peace who admits he is risking arrest if state authorities decide his operation is illegal.

The 64-year-old Tombstone resident, who insists his poker league is legitimate, says he is willing to face charges to prove it. And after his two years of operating poker parlors with impunity, that fate may be in the cards: Attorney General Terry Goddard announced last week that he is considering criminal charges.

"If that's what it takes, let's get this thing in the courthouse," Lee declared. "They'll lose because poker isn't (illegal) gambling. . . . I don't think they can get a jury to convict."

Lee's operation represents the growth in poker's popularity in recent years, including the game's increasing move beyond the casino to other venues, from the Internet to college dorm rooms. At the same time, Congress adopted a law to stop gambling on the Web, and authorities from New York to San Diego tried cracking down on backroom operators.

Rather than hide from the law, Lee delivered letters to state authorities advising them of his legal stand. He also advertises the poker games on an Internet site (www.arizonacardroom.com), which includes diatribes against the state gaming statutes: "We need the light of day shined on this disastrous public policy. We have had our true heritage stolen from us. We have had powers and authorities illegally usurped from our charter."

Wearing a feathered derby over his graying ponytail, Lee condemns state gambling statutes as unconstitutional, evil, nefarious and anti-historical. He claims poker is part of "our inherent and inalienable right to liberty in the pursuit of happiness." Finally, he contends that a state compact giving Indian tribes the exclusive right to operate casinos is a monopolistic rip-off for Arizona taxpayers.

Arizona law generally bans businesses from promoting or profiting from games of chance. Yet the ex-judge has conducted no-limit poker parlors since 2005 at public venues in Cochise County, with nobody calling his bluff, so far.

In fact, the club's membership list includes peace officers, soldiers, deputy prosecutors and a mayor, Lee said.

He talks of setting up tourist excursions to poker rooms in Tombstone and of expanding operations into Maricopa County. He says social gambling is good for communities, and he has held benefit tournaments in support of historical buildings and youth football.

Lee is so convinced the games are copasetic that he promises to accept "sole and full responsibility" if a raid occurs.

"I would walk into a cell in the morning if I could drag along the amoral Arizona State Indian Gaming monopoly," he wrote in a letter to the citizens of Tombstone. "If sending an old man to the slammer will help bring down that reprehensible monopoly, great!"

Club's legality

On the Web site, Lee says the card room operates "with the acceptance" of Goddard, Cochise County Attorney Ed Rheinheimer, the Arizona Gaming Department and the state Department of Liquor License and Control.

That claim turns out to be a tad misleading.

According to a Gaming Department report, the agency conducted undercover investigations of Arizona Card Room games in Bisbee and Sierra Vista during 2006-07. In both cases, the enterprises were deemed illegal, and felony charges were sought against Lee and his former partner, Michael D. Palmer, a former legislator and ex-Cochise County supervisor who dropped out of the business a year ago.

Attorney General spokeswoman Andrea Esquer said prosecutors did not pursue the case because of a "lack of resources." However, that position changed after media inquiries last week. Upon reviewing Lee's Web site, Goddard announced he will reconsider charges because it appears Lee is challenging state law.

"It is a fine line . . . between what he's trying to do and a casino," Goddard said.

Reinheimer, the Cochise County prosecutor, said he met with Lee but never agreed that the card club is legal. "We don't under any circumstance give advisory opinions to private citizens," Reinheimer said, adding that he had never considered charges because nobody ever asked him to. "It's not anything we would take action on unless somebody filed a complaint," he said.

Gaming investigators found that the Arizona Card Room collects $200 to $400 nightly from participants. They also determined that dealers sometimes become players and that Lee took part in games using house money.

Lee contends the card room is a not-for-profit social club, like a sports league, where members compete in games of skill.

There is a $20 annual membership fee, and players plunk down a dollar or two every few hands to cover rent and other expenses.

Lee said dealers are club volunteers who get paid only in tips. Liquor is not sold, though players are allowed to bring their own.

"This is adults playing games, and it really isn't something the state should or can control," he added.
 

Different kind of judge

As a justice of the peace in northeast Phoenix for 12 years during the 1970s and '80's, Lee was nicknamed the "Rock and Roll Judge" for his musical preferences.

He earned a reputation for unusual legal rulings and sometimes punished the guilty by ordering them to donate blood or pick up litter.

But Lee was most known for assailing Arizona statutes that target "victimless crimes" such as marijuana possession, prostitution and gambling.

More than two decades later, his Web site amounts to a political manifesto on the topic.

Among Lee's arguments:

• The regulation of gambling should be conducted only by local government. Towns like Tombstone were founded as gaming centers, Lee says, and would thrive again with poker parlors.

He sites an 1881 ordinance as historic evidence and notes that brothers Wyatt and Virgil Earp regularly enjoyed gambling in the Birdcage Saloon.

• The state's Indian gaming compact authorizes a "wicked, base and evil" monopoly that has enriched "foreign nations," the tribes, by $2 billion yearly at the expense of Arizona residents.

Lee says the compact violates the Constitution's equal-protection clause and was adopted as an irrational salve for White man's guilt after centuries of mistreating Native Americans.

• Arizona laws against gambling are hypocritical because the state operates a lottery based entirely on chance, with far worse odds of winning than poker

'I'm a philosopher'

After losing a judicial election in 1984, Lee worked as a trucker and bus driver.

He said he retired to Cochise County in 2005 with plans to create the gambling league. Early tournaments were held at a Bisbee bed-and-breakfast and a Tombstone motel before the club settled a few blocks from the Fort Huachuca Army base.

Lee incorporated the Arizona Card League and created the Arizona Card Room as his business. He acknowledges that, because of filing failures, neither entity is in good standing with the state Corporation Commission.

Lee, who lives on Social Security benefits, said he hopes the enterprise will eventually generate a profit but insisted the goal is to make a point rather than money.

"I'm a philosopher or something," he said. "I hate business. But I enjoy kicking the (stuffing) out of the state."

A sign leaned against a chair in the club: "Beware: Poker players and loose women are known to frequent this establishment."

About 30 gamblers hunched over felt-topped poker tables, trying to figure out when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em. The room was brightly lit with a pair of propane space heaters doing a poor job of fighting the chill.

John Seely, a 30-year-old Army staff sergeant, clapped his hands and raked in a pot of chips. "You see that? ... "Seely beamed. "I wanna do this professionally."

The other players laughed, pointing out that, just a year ago, Seely was a "fish," a novice who lost more money than he won.

At another table, 36-year-old government contractor Rosemarie Lane said she and her husband joined the club to avoid 100-mile trips to an Indian casino near Tucson. The Lanes take turns each night, one playing poker while the other looks after their 7-year-old daughter.

Lane said she wondered if the place was legal at first but then saw police officers and Border Patrol agents at the tables. "It must be legit," she decided.

Rose, the cigar-chomping ex-cop, said he studied Arizona gaming statutes and is convinced the club operates legally.

"I have a little experience with the law," he added. "If they decide to book me, I'll just plead not guilty and demand a trial."

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Poker players play during Friday night’s cash game at the Arizona Card room's new Sierra Vista location next to Sun N Spokes on Fry Blvd., in Sierra Vista. The card room has been open since early April. (Matt Hickman-Herald/Review)

Coming out of the shadows

BY MATT HICKMAN
HERALD/REVIEW

Published on Sunday, June 03, 2007

SIERRA VISTA — They live in the shadows but chances are you have a friend, a co-worker, maybe even a family member who is one of them. One weekend a month — maybe more — they gather in greasy garages, where they smoke cheap cigars and drink even cheaper beer.

Though some of them may be officers of the law, most are uncertain whether all this inconspicuousness is necessary.

Judge Harold Lee, a retired Maricopa County Justice of the Peace, doesn’t think it at all necessary and he’s spent the last two years trying to get them to step boldly from the shadows and onto Main Street, USA.

“The biggest problem we have, is people think they’re going to be arrested if they come here,” Lee said. “But we see it as a competitive sporting event and we go out of our way to be in compliance with the statute.”

The statute to which Lee refers is ARS 13-303 and 13-304, which he sees as allowing social gambling so long as it does not involve the sale of alcohol or the taking of a rake by the house.

“We want to be what the PGA is to golf. We want to find the best poker players in the area,” Lee said. “We’re real serious about building a league. We have to have people stop pushing poker into garages and acting like there’s something nefarious about it.”

After consulting with Cochise County Attorney Ed Rheinheimer and Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard, Lee opened the not-for-profit Arizona Card room in a building next to the Stock Exchange Bar in Bisbee.

“The county attorney, the city council, everyone knows what we’re doing,” Lee said. “I don’t think anyone disagrees with our theory or with our right to do this.”

Two years in the Brewery Gulch location produced no legal challenges to the Card room's right to exist, but the location was an obstacle to reaching the majority of card players in Sierra Vista.

So when the Bisbee lease ran out in March, the club packed up and moved to a temporary home at the Fairfield Inn near the Mall at Sierra Vista. After nearly a month playing there, the club found a permanent home on Fry Blvd., just east of Carmichael, next to Sun ‘n Spokes.

“The problem with Bisbee was it was too small of a community — we couldn’t gain any growth for the league,” Lee said.

Lee said the club has grown to more than 200 members since the addition of the Sierra Vista location, and it could grow even bigger with the addition of a Thursday and Saturday night game at the Holiday Inn Express in Tombstone.

The club christened its new location last Friday, playing its season-ending tournament of champions in the same room the hotel serves its continental breakfast. The winner of the tournament won a seat at a World Series of Poker satellite tournament at the Rio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.

Daniel Crabtree of Hereford was the favorite going in. As the points leader he entered with the most chips to play. He clawed his way into the final two, where he found himself at a 10 to 1 chips deficit to Matt Harris.

“On the second hand, I went all-in with pocket 10s, he called and it held up,” Crabtree said. “On the very next hand, I got pocket 10s again, he called me and it held up again.”

By this time, the two were about even in chips and Crabtree rode the momentum to the final hand, where he matched his queen on the flop and walked away with the seat in Vegas.

“I thought my chances were slim-to-none. I was so out-chipped and Matt’s such a good player,” Crabtree said. “I don’t know what I’ll be going against (in Las Vegas). They could be pros — which I’m not — I’m just a guy who loves to play poker. I plan on having a great time, I’ve never been to Las Vegas before.”

Crabtree said he’s been playing poker for 40 years, but before the Arizona Cardroom, he played only for fun. He played in the first event at the Bisbee location and won the last tournament held there in March.

“My game has really improved a lot playing here, as well as watching the World Series of Poker on TV and reading a lot of books about poker,” Crabtree said. “I don’t think there is a secret to winning at poker. It’s about strategy and luck and learning that you’re not just playing the cards — you’re playing the people.”

With just four tables in a 3,600 square-foot building at the Sierra Vista location, there’s plenty of room to move around. Lee said he’d like to add backgammon, darts, and any other game of skill that can fit under the statute. A large king of clubs poster and a generic sign in big type reading “poker here” in the window has been an effective tool in drawing attention from passers-by.

John Pearson, a math professor and an assistant women’s soccer coach at Cochise College is the Sierra Vista card room manager and Tyler Fisher, one of 15 dealers who work for tips at the various games, is the floor manager.

“There’s a lot of people who play poker here in town,” Fisher said. “There’s so many GIs who play at the casinos in Tucson.”

But unlike casinos, where the house bleeds players for a rake of up to $15 an hour, Arizona Cardroom players pay a fee only for the cost of the lights, rent and basic operating costs. The buy-in for 7:30 p.m. Thursday and Friday night tournament games in Sierra Vista is $50 and $35 in Tombstone, with $7 going to the club and the rest to the pot.

“Sometimes we see people slow down when they go by,” Fisher said. “Around 4 a.m. people walking by look in, see us still playing and their jaws drop, saying ‘what are you guys doing up?’ And we give them the exact same expression. Sometimes we’ll see the joggers at 7 a.m. We’ll play 7 to 7, or, until the last dog drops.”

Lee himself, is not much of a card player.

“Quite frankly, I don’t know much about cards,” Lee said. “But I like the camaraderie of the card room and I don’t think the government has any place in it.”

Crabtree seconded the club’s friendly nature.

“When I first came, I didn’t really know what to expect, I hadn’t played in any huge tournaments before,” Crabtree said. “But it’s a great group of people and I’ve made good friends. My wife is with me every time I come. We love coming here.”

Though the environment is friendly, and there’s no casino element trying to take your shirt, make no mistake, the Arizona Cardroom is all about gambling.

No one under 21 is allowed, and a substantial amount of money can be wagered and lost. If a player were to play both tournament nights at $50 each, and go deep into cash games, where the buy-in is anywhere between $40 and $80 and there is no limit on rebuys, he could lose hundreds of dollars each week.

Suffice it to say that so long as all players are playing with expendable income, the Arizona Card room is the joyous, positive clubhouse Lee describes it as.

But if a problem gambler starts playing with rent or the kids’ college fund, it could become the kind of den of misery religious conservatives paint all gambling as.

“I’ve barred a couple of people when we were in Bisbee,” Lee said. “It shows up pretty quick because they start borrowing from other club members. Vice is a personal problem, but if I believe someone is jeopardizing themselves or their family, I’m not going to allow them to play. If we’re aware of a problem, we’ll deal directly with it. We don’t make any money from them losing money.”

Wanting to make sure the cash games don’t get too rich for the average player’s blood, Lee said he will be introducing a small limit game with a maximum $2 bet before the river and $4 after next week in Tombstone, where the game brings in many tourists.

“I don’t think tourists should be playing in a no-limit game,” Lee said.

Lee said that in the next few weeks, he plans on adding a $2-$4 table to the Sierra Vista cash game, and dividing players between the expert and the novice.

“I know people think we’re corrupting, but we’re not,” Lee said. “It’s a little uncomfortable for guys to go from garage games to organized games, but we’re all a little institutionalized that way. In the garage, you make a mess and you don’t pay a nickel. Here, we ask them to clean up their mess and pay a little.”

 

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Annie Miller prepares to deal during Friday's Social Club Texas Hold'em Poker Tournament held in the Arizona Card Room at the Stock Exchange Bar on Brewery Gulch in old Bisbee. Mark Levy¥Herald/Review


Arizona Card League inaugural poker tournament: Bisbee's all in

By Matt Hickman

Herald/Review (June 2006)

BISBEE — After the last Jiggy Girl jumped up and down on the last trampoline, Comedy Central’s “The Man Show” was off the air, and its co-host Doug Stanhope found himself marooned on Highway 80 between Benson and Tombstone.

Actually, he was just pretending to be marooned in order to thumb-down oncoming cars, then asking the drivers if they’d mind him bringing on board his camera crew, which was in a van hiding under some brush alongside the road. All of this was part of a pilot episode for a show on the Travel Channel wherein funnymen like Stanhope would hitch rides in rural America and offer their irreverent insight into cross-country travel.

“The first guy who picked me up was this judge from Phoenix with this dream of opening a card room in Bisbee,” Stanhope said.

By that time, Judge Harold Lee, a justice of the peace in Maricopa County from 1973-85, was already waist deep in making that dream come true.

“My granddaddy ran a pool hall and card room and it looked like a lot of fun to me,” Lee said. “So I read a lot of law and put two and two together… According to Revised Statute 13-3303 and 13-3304 gaming is incidental to our business.”

Thus began the Arizona Card Room and Social Club, which made its big splash opening Friday night at a building adjacent to the Stock Exchange Bar in the Gulch. Over 40 people participated in the inaugural tournament and part of the pot from the $60 buy-in was donated to Bisbee Youth Football.

The pit boss, overseeing four tables of intense poker action was Mike Palmer, formerly of the Cochise County Board of Supervisors, and prior to that, the Arizona State Legislature. And prior to that, he was a dealer in Reno.

“(Lee) put a substantial amount of research into this,” said Palmer, who added that numerous attorneys, including Cochise County Attorney Ed Reinheimer and State Attorney General Terry Goddard were consulted, as well as local business officials. “The essence of this is that this is a private club… We have a rental fee for a number of games — darts, dominoes, pinochle, poker. If people choose to gamble, that’s fine, but they get charged the exact same fee whether they gamble or not.”

The fee for playing any game is $2 per hour, except for poker which is $3 an hour to cover the costs of tables, chips and the like. The club has also scheduled poker tournament nights for Fridays and Saturdays.

Lee said that in the 1980s, the state legislature wrote the statute which made gambling legal, even in bars. He said that soon became more of a burden for bars than a boon.

“It was very disruptive,” Lee said. “There was no control of any kind and the bars were getting nothing out of it so the liquor board started regulating it.”

Because of this, club members may not take any open containers from the Stock Exchange, or any other bar, to the club. Members may however bring their own packaged liquor.

“This physical address is not connected to the liquor license of the Stock Exchange,” Palmer said. “It’s the same owner of the building, but a completely different business.”

Lee said that under the statute, gaming remains legal as long as the business doesn’t take a “rake” from the gambling.

“The players handle their own bank and the dealers, if there are any, are volunteer,” Lee said. “All the money that is generated by the league is used to promote league tournaments.”

Stanhope didn’t last long in Friday night’s tournament, which was just fine with him.

“I’m experienced in losing at poker,” he said. “But it’s my favorite game to lose at.”

Stanhope said that after shooting the pilot for the Travel Channel, he stayed in the area for about a week.

“I’d been living in L.A. and I’d heard about Bisbee,” Stanhope said. “After being here for two days I saw a house for sale and bought it without ever seeing the inside of it.”

Stanhope said he still tours 35 to 40 weeks out of the year doing stand-up comedy around the world. He said he’s soon headed to Texas for a three-week stint.

“My long-term goal is free-time, and Bisbee’s a good place for that,” Stanhope said. “I’m not ambitious by any means.”

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