TEXAS HOLDEM ONLINE POKER

No-limit poker, and it's legal

How can a Seminole casino host a poker tournament offering winners a total of well over $50,000 if Florida law says players can't bet more than $2 at a time?

Easy: Give the poker chips no monetary value and offer a jackpot prize to the last 10 players not eliminated.

Thanks to a change in state gaming laws last August, more than 120 players will be legally playing for as much as $75,000 at noon today at the Seminole Indian Casino in Hollywood.

If the chips were assigned a cash value -- as they do in Las Vegas or Atlantic City -- the game would be illegal.

Dubbed ''The Big One -- Florida's Richest Poker Tournament,'' each player pays $500 for the right to play -- with $450 of that going to the jackpot pool and $50 to the house.

Players can bet as many of the 2,500 chips they start with on any one hand -- and have the option of buying up to 3,000 additional chips for $300.

= [100.0] = [100.0] It's no-limit Texas HoldEm rules: Each player gets two ''hole cards'' dealt face down. Five community cards are dealt face up in the middle of the table. Players bet after they see their hole cards and again after the first three cards are dealt face up -- also known as ''the flop'' -- and then after the fourth card (''the turn'') and again after a fifth card (''the river'') are dealt.

The best five-card hand wins the pot. Or, if no one calls the bet, sometimes the best bluff wins.

Warren Targia, the casino's poker manager, estimates it will take about six hours to get down to the final table with the last 10 players from an estimated field of more than 120 entrants. After one of them wins all of the chips, the final 10 split the jackpot loot, with the winner netting about 33 percent of the jackpot and the other nine players getting progressively smaller shares.

From the time the game starts until it ends, no player can cash out. The only way you walk from the table is by losing your chips -- or winning all of the table's chips and advancing to the championship table.

''This is the first time a poker tournament this big has been held at a Seminole casino. In fact, it's probably the biggest land-based poker tournament Florida has ever had,'' said Targia, who will oversee the tournament.

''Again, the chips have no value. Players are playing for chips, not cash,'' Targia stressed.

''With no-limit Texas HoldEm tournaments, a player needs more luck than skill,'' he said. ``Players hope they are lucky enough to be one of the last 10 players -- and be able to share some of the jackpot money, which state law says can now be as big as it can get.''

Kristen Ploska of the state Division of Pari-Mutuel Wagering in Tallahassee said: ``The no-limit Texas HoldEm that the Seminole Indian Casino in Hollywood is hosting is completely legal.''

Last year's change in the jackpot law, which allowed pots to grow higher than a $10 limit for the first time, paved the way for no-limit Texas HoldEm games, the current national craze.

''It's the biggest game out there. Nothing is hotter than no-limit Texas HoldEm,'' said Gary Pechota, chief of staff for the National Indian Gaming Commission in Washington, D.C.

``We believe the Seminoles are the first Indian casino to host this kind of tournament. We would be interested in seeing if other Indian casinos follow their lead.''

So is Pat Fowler, executive director of the Florida Council on Compulsive Gambling, who said the glamorized poker tournaments are introducing a new generation of people to gambling.

''What was once a dying card game is becoming the most popular form of gambling with young people,'' Fowler said. ``The cable network coverage of these tournaments [the Travel Channel's World Poker Tour and ESPN's World Series of Poker ] has become a totally new industry, making the competitive action between players into compelling television. But the result is the same. Any increase in gambling leads to increases in gambling problems.''

She urges people who think they might have a gambling problem to reach out to her organization. They can do that by calling the toll-free number 1-888-ADMIT-IT.

But don't try to tell the more than 120 players expected to participate in today's tournament that they have a problem, especially when they all hope to be among the 10 winners.

Targia says if the jackpot reaches $75,000, the winner can expect to get a third of the pool, or about $25,000.

The second player would get 18 percent, or $13,500.

Third place would get 12 ½ percent, or about $9,400.

And fourth through 10th place would get increasingly smaller percentages, with the smallest share being $1,550.