Wyoming Panel Supports Social Poker in Bars & Restaurants

The Wyoming Senate Travel, Recreation, Wildlife and Cultural Resource Committee committee unanimously endorsed a bill this past Thursday to permit the return of 'social' poker games to state bars and restaurants.

"If you just get some folks who decide to come down and play poker and they're also buying drinks from you, that's legal," Sen. Mike Massie, D-Albany, said. "It's called social gambling."

In 2004, Attorney General Pat Crank effectively banned poker games from public establishments when he issued an opinion saying that poker games in bars violated the state's gambling law. Crank's opinion said the games are illegal because they allow establishments to profit from gambling, even if that profit is just from increased business.

Committee chairman Sen. Bruce Burns, R-Sheridan, said the attorney general's opinion "went counter to what the practice had been in the state for the last 100 years."

"This is not so much expanding the use of gambling, it's taking it back to what the tradition had been," Burns said.

Crank has not yet commented on the legislation, according to Burns.

Mike Moser, executive director of the Wyoming State Liquor Association, testified in favor of the legislation and said business owners need clarification of the state's policy.

"If Grandma and her friends show up for coffee every morning and play gin rummy, they're fine, but if they switch to Texas Hold 'Em, then Grandma's going to (prison)," Moser said. "It's an important issue for us not because it opens any doors, but because it just redefines the doors we already have, takes a lot of concerns out of people's minds."

Byron Oedekoven, executive director of the Wyoming Association of Sheriffs and Chiefs, said he had no opinion on the bill but appreciated the efforts of the committee to clarify state policy. Oedekoven said the bill could make it easier for him to train law enforcement officers who often face questions on gambling policy: "Is this illegal, are they doing it right, how do I investigate this?"

Members of the Senate Travel, Recreation, Wildlife and Cultural Resources Committee said the law would not permit establishments to sponsor tournaments among strangers. The bill now moves to the full Senate for consideration.

By KATHLEEN MILLER

Associated Press writer

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