TEXAS HOLDEM ONLINE POKER

CONCORD — Attorney General Kelly Ayotte wants to strengthen the state's hand in Texas Holdem poker tournaments by closing a loophole some charities are exploiting.

She told the Governor and Executive Council this week she is conferring with legislators about tightening the law and will likely have something for the Legislature to consider next year.

"Charitable gaming is regulated by charitable trusts (within the Attorney General's Office) and there is a $2 limit wager, but with Texas Holdem there are ways to get around the law," she said.

"We recognize it is a concern," she said. "They are using a loophole in the law. We are trying to do everything we can," she told the governor. "I do think the law needs to be tightened, and we have been discussing this with the Legislature."

The game at the center of the poker mania is Texas Holdem, popularized by cable television's coverage of such tournaments in Las Vegas.

Players are dealt two cards each and can use five community cards flipped over in the middle of the table to make the best hand. Players can risk everything on a single turn of a card.

The state's gaming law has a $2 bet limit, but tournament promoters get around that by assigning no monetary value to the poker chips.

Audrey Blodgett at the Attorney General's Office of Charitable Trusts said about 30 charities have filed applications to hold poker tournaments in Derry, Keene, Pembroke, Laconia and a half-dozen other communities.

Promoters stage the tournaments under the state gaming law that allows a charity to sponsor up to 10 Monte Carlo fundraisers each year. The charities must report to the state the prizes awarded, expenses paid and revenue raised, but there is no state oversight of the games, which are conducted under a permit obtained from local police.

Lobbyist Richard L. Bouley, president of Bouley Associates, said bingo hall operators are not opposed to state regulation or taxation, as long as it does not adversely affect the charities.

Across the country, other states are facing similar issues related to Texas Holdem.

Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Wyoming, Iowa and even Texas, where the game originated, are among states considering changes in their laws related to charitable gaming.

Increasingly, charitable organizations throughout New Hampshire are raising money by sponsoring poker tournaments — where $5,000 is typically the top prize, enough to draw hundreds of card players — leaving some legislators wondering whether the state should share in the jackpot.

"I'm not particularly fond of gambling, but if the state is going to allow gambling for charitable purposes and we're getting into high-stakes stuff, I think the state should get some revenue from it," said Rep. Neal M. Kurk, R-Weare, the former chairman of the House Finance Committee.

"I'm not suggesting that we tax the winners," Kurk said. "We need to take a good serious look at whether promoters may be taking an unacceptably large portion of the gross and charities are not getting enough. It seems we've increased the amount of revenue by an order of magnitude, and we need to look at that as an issue."

Sen. Lou D'Allesandro, D-Manchester, voiced similar concern in an interview in November.

These fast-paced poker tournaments arrived at the Manchester Bingo Center last January. The sponsor was On the Road to Recovery, a charity that helps the mentally disabled.

Under her contract with the promoters, Andrea Tinkham, executive director of On the Road to Recovery, agreed to pay "50 percent of all net proceeds," after prizes and expenses, to S&T Consultants Inc., the bingo center's managers, James Timbas and James Cristos.

Tinkham said her charity made an average of $2,500 for each of its 10 poker nights, supplementing the organization's annual state allocation of about $177,000.

From the state's perspective, the poker tournaments are unlike bingo because the state neither regulates nor profits from the games.

The state collected $904,000 from a 7 percent tax levied on the various "winner-take-all" bingo games. It got $879,000 as its cut on Lucky 7 sales, and also collected licensing fees from the charities that sponsor the games and the ticket distributors. Roy estimated it costs about $500,000 a year for the commission to administer and the state police to enforce the bingo laws.

Under a new law, administration and enforcement of the bingo laws will become the responsibility of the Pari-mutuel Commission in January. But Ayotte said this does not cover Texas Holdem.

Ayotte said efforts to get legislation going on the subject did not go very far this year. But next year, she said she expects to see legislation take on Texas Holdem, though she did not specify what the proposal might be.

House Budget Committe Chairman Fred King, R-Colebrook, recalled that Ways and Means, favoring an increase in the cigarette tax, showed no interest earlier this year when he suggested poker might be a source of new revenue. Thus, it did not become part of the budget-year discussion.