TEXAS HOLDEM ONLINE POKER

The casino, which is operated by the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Nation in the town of Cherokee, wants to add live poker to its phalanx of video gambling machines. That would appear to be legally impossible under state law, but the laws regulating gambling on reservations are complicated and confusing. Even the governor's office conceded, in an interview with The News & Observer of Raleigh, that state law may not apply to the Cherokee request.

The debate over what is legal at the casino must be argued within the context of a 1988 federal law. It gives Indian tribes the right to operate casinos, but also gives the states some control over the kind of gambling allowed at those casinos. North Carolina's rules permit video machine gambling in Cherokee, but not live table games.

North Carolina's rules may not apply, however, if the casino fails to take a cut of the pot in live Texas Holdem poker games. If that is so, then the question of live poker games will be decided by the National Indian Gaming Commission. That would take it out of North Carolina's hands.

The rapid growth of the popularity of live poker is due, in large part, to the promotion of the game on television. ESPN is now airing hours of poker-tournament coverage and glorifying professional gamblers in the process. In addition, Internet gaming sites allow almost anyone with a home computer to play, in essence breaking the state's gambling laws from the privacy of their own homes.

There are those who consider gambling a victimless crime. That's like saying that prostitution, drug abuse and smut peddling are victimless crimes. Gambling addiction is dangerous to individuals and their families, just as drug and alcohol addictions are.

North Carolina has long had anti-gambling statutes on the books, but reservation casinos, offshore Internet gambling sites and televised poker tournaments from Las Vegas are undermining them. The growing acceptance of gambling nationwide is pushing down North Carolina's attempts to keep the scourge out of its communities.

A few legal table games of poker won't mean the end of the world. But legal poker games in Cherokee will constitute one more diminution of the quality of life in North Carolina. It will give the Texas Holdem poker and gambling culture a boost in the state and make it all the more popular.

If there is anything either Easley or the legislature can do to scuttle this move, they should do it. North Carolina does not want to mimic Las Vegas.