History Of Arizona's Social Gambling
It all started back in August 1987
when the State Legislature updated the Arizona gambling statutes. Along with
adding felony penalties to the gambling laws, they added a "social
gambling" exemption. The intention was to allow friends to play poker and
bet between themselves on sporting events, but it took only a few months for
the idea to catch on in the bars that open gambling was now okay. At first only
poker was played, and supposedly the players supplied all of the equipment and
the bar had nothing to do with the games. Next blackjack began to appear,
wherein the deal could rotate to a player if he got a "twenty-one", thus making the game "equal
terms" as required by the
law. The gambling stayed on a relatively small scale for the first year,
with only about twenty bars allowing it and this was mostly in the Phoenix
area.
In August 1988 Tommy's Full House
opened and this caused a revolution in the social gambling. The first unique thing that he did was to
advertise the gambling at his bar. His bar also
In the Spring of 1989 the State
Legislature, at the request of the Attorney General's Office, tried to change
the "social gambling" definitions to get the gambling out of the
bars. Because of disagreements between the House and the Senate, the bill
finally died after almost passing several times in several different forms.
Until the Summer of 1989 it was mainly
Phoenix area bars that were offering the gambling, but soon Tucson and the rest
of the state started to get into the act of having "social gambling". The Attorney General's Office made another attempt to stop the
barroom gambling by filing public
nuisance suits against six Phoenix
area bars in July and August of 1989. The results of the cases were as follows:
The bars Pool & Brew and McWade's
agreed to stop the "social
gambling" in their establishments in order to avoid the state's suit.
In the Tommy's Full House case, Judge Stover
ruled against the Full House and
issued an injunction that prohibited the gambling activity on the grounds that
the gambling was illegal and did not fall within the "social
gambling" exemption.
In the Lester's Lounge case, Judge Pro TeM Joel Thompson ruled that the craps and roulette were illegal, but that poker and twenty-one were probably allowable.
In the Sweetwater Inn and Tong's Bar
case, Judge O'Melia ruled that the
"social gambling" statute was unconstitutionally broad and vague and
that it was up to the State Legislature to
address the "social gambling" issue.
As can be seen from these mixed and
varied rulings, the whole question of
what was legal or illegal was totally up in the air. The "social gambling
industry" continued to grow at an
amazing rate so that by the Spring of 1990 there were estimated to be
approximately 250 bars in Arizona conducting "social gambling" and the dollar amounts
involved were not small. The Phoenix
Police Department estimated that in 1988 there was 547.5 million dollars
wagered in the Phoenix bars offering "social gambling"!!!
This all lead up to the show down of
the ''social gambling" bars versus the Attorney General's Office, the Dog
and Horse Racing Lobbyists, and Liquor Control in lobbying the State
Legislature in the Spring of 1990. This time the bars lost and on May 3, 1990 a
new "social gambling" law became effective and most of the barroom
gambling shut down immediately. A few bars decided to continue to offer the
"social gambling" by creating adjoining "Social Clubs", but
on June 1, 1990 Lester's Lounge and the adjacent Lily Pad Social Club were
raided by police and closed, along with Jerry Roper the owner of the
establishment being arrested.
On August 31, 1990 the Cliff Manor Inn
near Tucson was raided [HEY I WAS THERE! - JG] by various law enforcement
agencies and several people were arrested along with various gambling equipment
being seized.
On September 15, 1990 the 16th Street
Social Club was raided by Phoenix Police and Department of Public Safety
Officers. Arrested was owner Fook Hoi "Steve" Tong and approximately
a dozen patrons on gambling and related charges. In a related raid at his south
Phoenix home, Samuel J. Jeffcoat
was arrested by police for
helping to run the gambling operations at Tong's club.
On September 21, 1990 police raided a
house located in Paradise Valley and arrested seven people on gambling charges
including the people dealing the games of 4-5-6 and blackjack. Police also stated that the cards used at
the blackjack table were marked and many patrons noted heavy losses at that
game.
In the latest raids, it seems that the
law enforcement community is taking the stance that they are not going to
tolerate the creation of superficial "social clubs" to circumvent the
law. So as a player, you are taking a "gamble" with a possible
criminal record if you play at these social gambling clubs.
It will now be up to the courts to
decide again what is permissible under the new "social gambling" law.
In the meantime gambling is still at an all time high in Arizona with much of
the old bar room gambling going underground and into private homes. There are
two significant differences with the current gambling situation compared to
three years ago before "social gambling" became legal. First, the
players now know each other and have a network that did not exist three years
ago. Second, there are many out of
state gamblers that have moved to Arizona and will stay here as long as it
remains profitable.
Thanks to Gambler's World on Grand Avenue for this.
Last Modified 5/15/00