| In the Spring of 1989 the State Legislature, at the request of the
Attorney Generals 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. |
|
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 Tommys 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. |
|
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. |
| 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
supposably 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. |
