Taking extra care in Beach bet on poker

Every Wednsday is poker night at the Hometown Heroes Sports Pub, when patrons stop by the Princess Anne restaurant for a few rounds of Texas Hold 'Em. The game, where each player gets two cards and five are shared, is considered the Cadillac of poker, the subject of dozens of TV shows and too many Web sites to count.

But it has a controversial history here that suggests caution. Games of Texas Hold 'Em have been halted twice in the past five years in Hampton Roads communities after a chief prosecutor and the state Department of Charitable Gaming ruled that tournaments were illegal.

In 2004, Virginia Beach Commonwealth's Attorney Harvey Bryant told the Fraternal Order of Police that it was renting its hall to a group that illegally charged patrons $75 each to play in a monthly tournament.

Under Virginia law, an operation is considered illegal if prizes are awarded, the game is one of chance and patrons have to pay to play. The charity shut down the tournament rather than risk losing its license to hold bingo and raffles.

In 2007, Portsmouth's Fraternal Order of Police chapter stopped raising money for its charitable foundation by hosting Texas Hold 'Em tournaments. The city attorney told the group the tournaments were illegal.

Now Virginia Beach is getting ready to lease the Sportsplex and surrounding property to private developers whose plans include building a Hometown Heroes pub. As is the case with other sports pubs, including the other Hometown Heroes pubs in the Beach and in Chesapeake, plans call for the new restaurant to host poker nights.

Given the history, Virginia Beach is right to seek an opinion from the commonwealth's attorney about whether playing Texas Hold 'Em on city property is legal. The devil is in the game's details. Lawmakers in Virginia - and even at the federal level - haven't agreed on one of the criteria for determining poker's legality: whether it's mostly a game of skill or chance.

City officials said they don't expect the poker issue to hold up the Sportsplex deal, which the City Council will vote on this month. Virginia Beach likely will include a clause in the lease agreement that bars any activity the commonwealth's attorney determines is illegal.

Bryant, who hasn't been asked yet for an opinion in this latest Virginia Beach case, told The Pilot's Deirdre Fernandes, "There are so many variations.... It's very difficult to say this is not in violation of the gaming statute."

This isn't about the morality of poker, or whether Texas Hold 'Em is a game of skill or chance. As City Attorney Mark Stiles said, when Virginia Beach is the landlord, it needs to make sure the activities being conducted on its property are within the law.