Legal in-House Poker in South Carolina?

South Carolina state Rep. Wallace Scarborough, R-Charleston is drafting legislation to legalize in-house poker games, as long as they are a 'recreational activity.'

The bill would be part of an overall effort to update antiquated state gaming laws dating from 1802. If strictly interpreted, these laws prohibit card and dice games and even some common board games like Monopoly.

Scarborough called such restrictions straight-laced holdovers from past centuries "ridiculous, considering we live in a modern era."

The bill is still in the early stages of development. Scarborough anticipates that he will face much opposition from Upstate conservatives who are against gambling in any form. "I'm going to have a million people against it," he predicted, but said he is hopeful that more than 50 percent of the Legislature will support the bill.

Ironically, the legislation, though totally independent, comes on the heels of a guilty verdict reached last Friday regarding an in-house poker game which was raided by Mount Pleasant police last April.

The game, held in the private home of Nathan Stallings, had been advertised via an Internet meet-up site that attracted poker players from all over the Lowcountry. Players paid a $20 buy-in to join the game and a percentage of the proceeds went to the house.

Stallings, 28, pleaded guilty to a single state charge of operating a gambling establishment and paid a combined $747 in fines and court costs, but will serve no jail time.

Eighteen of the players arrested in the same raid are seeking jury trials in what they say is a bid to toss out the state's anti-poker laws. The group hopes to be found guilty in those jury trials, sending the case upward toward legal appeals.

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