I am writing to you as a long standing participant in the Richmond Virginia Poker Community.  I have run Pop's Poker since it started in 2020 as Director of Operations and feel that I have a unique perspective regarding the details of the regulations that would be most detrimental to running a Charitable Poker Room in Virginia.

I am listing my objections to the proposed regulations and my reasons and solutions to the issues.

Item #1 – Concurrent Tournaments

The first item is the item listed as 11VAC20-30-90, sub-section F.  By limiting a poker room to a single tournament at the time, would severely limit the ability of a poker room to service its clientele.  Most multi-table tournaments, especially big ones, get reduced to a few tables once players are eliminated from the tournament, leaving players and dealers without anything to do.  In our particular case, we have 10 tables.  Once we are down to 3-4 tables, we would want to start a new tournament.  This regulation would require that we can only have one tournament at a time and would have to actually wait until the first tournament is over before being able to ramp up another tournament. 

This is similar to a restaurant with multiple tables, but only being able (by law) to open one or two tables at a time.  This rule is overreaching and makes no sense if the goal is to help the charities earn the maximum amount of money that they can, even given all of the existing restrictions.

Please remove this restriction completely.

Item #2 – Tipping Staff

My second issue has to do with 11VAC20-30-100, sub-section D2 - Tipping.  Again, using the restaurant analogy, is it reasonable to tell waiters and waitresses that they are not allowed to be tipped as part of their job, when literally, the entire USA has a tipping culture with regard to food service? The same thing exists in the world of gaming.  Dealers and cage personnel, chip runners, and management, are all part of the world of poker, and players are used to tipping the workers which accounts for a large part of their take-home pay.  Players like to tip as they want to reward their favorite dealers.  The main point is that poker rooms will have a hard time attracting talent to deal poker games! We are now in a competitive world with casinos, who have poached most of my roster of dealers, that I personally spent two years training and developing.  If we had to go to a "no tip" work environment, we will not be able to compete with the casinos for these fine workers.  This is simply not fair, and it makes no sense.  Nobody benefits from this rule.

This restriction is re-stated in 11VAC20-30-100 Tournament Play, sub-section D2.  This is really an unfair restriction and would very substantially hurt the charities ability to function by limiting their ability to acquire talented dealers, which are mandated by law.

Please remove this restriction!

Item #3 – What “Use of Proceeds” is Based On

My third issue with the proposed regs is the way that the amount of use of proceeds is calculated.  When entering a poker tournament, the player will pay typically two basic fees, one is the amount that goes to the prizepool, and the other is the house fee.  The prizepool fee is held by the house until the conclusion of the tournament, at which time the prizepool is paid out in full by the end of the tournament.  None of that money is ever kept by the charity, or the operations company.  The extra house fee is what should be considered for use of proceeds purposes, and ONLY that money should be considered. 

Let’s use an example: A player comes to play a tournament.  The fee is $300+$30 for a total of $330.  The $300 fee is for the prizepool of awards for the players who “cash” in the tournament, the $30 fee is to be split based on the use of proceeds calculation.  In this case, let’s assume that we have 10 players, so we have collected $3000 for the prizepool and $300 for the house (charity and operations).  It makes no sense for the regs to force the operations to pay any percentage (much less 20%+) based on the $3300, the total amount collected, since $3000 of it, was NEVER considered as income, or proceeds.

This reg should be specific about ONLY including money that is specifically collected by the operations company for the purposes of a house/charity fee.  All other proceeds would be considered prize money and NOT part of taxable, or sharable (with the charity/operations) money.

Item #4 - Rebuys

My fourth issue is regarding “Rebuys” as listed in 11VAC20-30-100, sub-section H.  I am really at a loss as to where VDACS came up with this wording.  Rebuys are specifically tournament fees that are paid by players who have been previously eliminated and wish to rejoin the tournament, before the rebuy period has ended.

Most every tournament in the world has rebuys.  Players like them as it allows them to continue playing, where otherwise, they would have to go home, which could happen in a literally few minutes after the tournament begins.  The rebuy ALWAYS takes place after a player has lost all of their chips, however, your proposed regulation which includes this statement: “Re-buys may only occur before a player has lost all of their poker chips” specifically forbids rebuys.

If the office meant “add-on” then why not use that verbiage? Furthermore, a tournament that does not allow rebuys (and they are fairly rare) is called a “freezeout” tournament.  Also, players who wish to rebuy BEFORE they run out of chips, typically need to “surrender” their existing chips. Why didn’t VDACS use this language? I believe that this demonstrates a lack of poker knowledge and severely affects the game as it prevents players from being able to stick around playing the game they love and it restricts the charities and operations companies from being able to serve the public and thus make money.  Please strike this item completely and simply allow rebuys to take place (before the rebuy period has ended, as determined by the house) as they are at literally EVERY poker room in the world.

Item #5 – Operator Fees

My next comment is regarding item 11VAC20-30-60, sub-section P.  Fees should be based on the number of players and how much they have paid to specifically get into a specific tournament.  Many tournaments have different fees.  The more expensive tournaments charge higher fees than the smaller tournaments.  It would be easy and fair to simply require a percentage split based on the total house fees that are accumulated.  The operations companies are entitled to make money, just as the charities are allowed to make money.  They both have a contract between them to establish their working relationship.  Why the extra need to make the accounting between them complicated? If the house has a bad night, the operations company still gets to charge a full rate for running the tournament? This whole idea makes no sense.  If the game is doing well, then BOTH the charity and the operations company should be allowed to share in that success based on a percentage of the take, as that is all the money that is available to both.

Item #6 - Recordkeeping

This has to do with 11VAC20-20-90.  VDACS has propsed that:

“If a qualified organization uses an operator to administer its poker tournament, then the qualified organization and its operator shall each maintain independent records from one another on each poker tournament.  The qualified organization shall not have its records managed, maintained, or stored by an operator.”

This is not possible without a completely redundant system.  The poker operator maintains all data and can give access to the charity, and that data is based on the data that has its records managed, maintained and stored by the operator.  This is in direct conflict with the regulation stated above.  The operator can give access to the charity any and all data necessary for them to maintain a paper trail of their own.  The fact that the charity is required to maintain their own paper trail is perfectly fine, but the data that maintains the players names and activity would be based on a single system maintained typically by the operations company.  In fact, this is one of the main purposes of having an operations company run the events in the first place.  The operations company makes it their job to know every player and keep track of their play.  Every 48 hours, there are new reports that are created and given to the charity to account for all of the activity.  So, the charity is, in fact, keeping their own records, but the data source would be a single source, controlled by whomever operates the tournaments.

Item #7 – Player Limitations

This is VERY important! Regarding 11VAC20-30-60 sub-section N, Why can’t we allow family members all the time, and associates to play on their days off? We draw very heavily for staff from the existing poker community.  There are not separate communities of players and dealers in Virginia as we are just creating this industry out of thin air.  Since we draw from the same community, many talented dealers who play will look for dealing opportunities at other venues as a result.  Another solution is to bind the dealers to a license agreement that includes the restriction that they can only play on days off.  Even casinos around the country do not have this restriction, why limit charitable gaming in such a way?

I suspect that the issue at hand here is the integrity of the game.  INTEGRITY OF THE GAME IS THE NUMBER ONE PRIORITY TO AN OPERATOR!  We are looking for people who collude literally ALL OF THE TIME.  It is just as easy for friends to collude as it is family members.  However, collusion, when caught, is severely dealt with in the poker community.  I feel that this particular restriction is limiting to such an extent as to prevent a group of people from playing simply because their family member works at a poker room.  My suggestion is to simply allow anyone to play, and leave the policing of collusion up to those who know what to look for to enforce rigorously.  We already have a complaint line in place for people who feel that there is something wrong with a game to report it to VDACS.  There is no need to impose further restrictions in an effort to limit a breach of integrity in this way.

Let’s please continue to allow family members of staff to enjoy the game that they love to play.

Item #8 - Calendar

Regarding the calendar days, VDACS is proposing that all days are from 12am through 12am.  This is not how most rooms think of the day, we think of it as OPEN to CLOSE on a given day.  Usually the daily rollover of the day, occurs after midnight when the room closes, usually around 2am or 3am.  Requiring poker rooms to be specifically from 12am-12am would make accounting for a given day, much tougher unnecessarily.  The requirement of a daily accounting can still be in place, daily reports, schedules etc.  Please strike this regulation completely as it is not necessary and more of a nuisance.

Item #9 – Badge Requirements

VDACS has required that the first AND last name of every staff member be put on their badge.  Last names on the badge would allow an irritated player to potentially harass a dealer over a bad session.  No casino requires last names for this same reason.  Please remove this last name requirement from the badges.  The rest of the badge requirements are fine.

Item #10 – Training Requirements

Regarding 11VAC20-30-90 sub-section H, where it says “All training courses shall be approved in advance by the department.” The department has not shown any knowledge or expertise in determining the best practices for training anyone in any capacity to act as an operator, dealer, or otherwise regarding the poker industry.  This is best left to the operator to establish training as long as they are following the statute and the regs and abiding by the TDA and poker best practices.  Please strike the verbiage at the end of this section so that item H reads:

“A qualified organization shall ensure that all persons, including the operator’s employees, independent contractors, volunteers or agents, involved in the management, operation, conduct, or administration of a poker tournament are trained in the use of any equipment, knowledge on the policies and procedures relevant to the person’s function, trained in the person’s responsibilities, knowledge of the poker game, and knowledge on the Charitable Gaming Law and this chapter.”

Item #11 – Charitable Host Representative

Regarding 11VAC20-30-90, sub-section J, where a charitable host representative needs to be present during the entire time that a tournament is being hosted.  Why is this a necessary requirement? Now the charity would have to have an unpaid representative that monitors the actions of the operator, even when subject to audits and daily reports? I think this places an undue time requirement on a charitable host to be present for free for long swaths of time that seem unreasonable and would ultimately end in the loss of a license and the end of the game if not sustained.  We changed this in the last iteration of the regs by the board, we should get this taken out again.

Item #12 – Electro-mechanical Devices

Regarding 11VAC20-30-80, sub-section O.  It is not clear in this regulation that the house cannot use electronic devices to manage the game.  There is a difference between an electronically “run” game (which I believe was the intent) and an electronically “managed” game.  In most cases, the game is live, with a live dealer, live chips, live cards and live people.  I am simply suggesting that this section be re-worded to include electromechanical devices to be used to “manage” the game.  This involves keeping track of players and their activity among other things.  There is absolutely no reason why this shouldn’t be allowed.  Please make this section clear as to the intent and allow for computers to manage the player activity.  This includes programs such as Bravo and Poker Atlas to be placed on every table, which in turn allows the dealers the opportunity to keep track of activity at the table level.

Thank you.