Poker News from North Carolina

This would seem, at first glance, the kind of subject that would fill a short pamphlet or less. In fact, poker news has been flying here in NC. I'll start with the good news: I looks like legal poker is coming to North Carolina.

Legal Poker Coming the NC Looking at the Harrah's Cherokee web site (http://www.harrahs.com/our_casinos/che/index.html), you can see that they have announced the planned opening of a 25 table live poker room. This is unbelievable. Currently, residents of the tarheel state have to drive to Mississippi to play a legal game of poker. That is about 10 hours. Now Cherokee, NC is not real close to my home in Charlotte, but it is one heck of a lot closer than Tunica. Quoting the Harrah's site:
"Get ready for live Poker! The exciting new addition is coming to Harrah's Cherokee early 2005! Our new Poker room will feature 24 poker tables with some of the more popular games such as Texas Hold'em and Omaha, as well as 5 and 7 Card Stud."

Illegal Poker is already here Next, we come to the down side of having to drive so far for legal poker. It's called going to the poky and that is what happened to 3 young entrepreneurs from Huntersville, NC. On Tuesday November 23, the 3 were arrested for running a high-stakes poker game. Police claimed that they had been investigating the games for a year. I don't know why they would admit that they are so inept that it takes them a whole year to bust up a game that was widely known around the county. More likely, they tripped over the game when one of the players was caught cheating, stripped of his winnings and tossed out. Problem was that he did not have his car keys on him and the players would not let him back in. So he called the cops. I guess the cops got an eye full and returned a few days later with a warrant and made the arrests. The story is availble here: http://pokermag.com/managearticle.asp?C=290&A=9639
Maybe one day, all will be free to playFinally, the Associated Press reports from Durham, NC that a group is trying to open a poker room and is challenging the Durham County DA on his finding that poker is a game of chance and therefore illegal in NC. At the time of this posting, this story is here http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/news/breaking_news/10308977.htm.