Poker for free springing up at bars in Midwest

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Dave Wallace spent 10 years listening to amateurs crooning away on stage. He had heard enough.

"I was so tired of karaoke," said Wallace, a karaoke bar entrepreneur from Wichita, Kan.

The region was saturated with karaoke spots, and he wanted offer bar patrons something new. So with some poker tables and a set of tournament rules for Texas Hold 'Em, he created the Amateur Poker League. Eight players showed up the first night. "My wife was furious. I spent a lot of money on it," he said.

But the next week, 30 showed up. And from that, Wallace launched a business that's sprouted at bars across Kansas and has national aspirations. "We all want to be millionaires by December," Wallace said.

But unlike the poker rooms of Las Vegas and Atlantic City, not to mention Missouri's riverboat casinos, the key word in Wallace's game is "amateur." There's no money at stake in the Amateur Poker League; players sign up at bars and clubs that have bought an affiliate from Wallace, are given an equal number of chips and are strictly prohibited from wagering real money.

It's the game -- along with gift certificates and other modest prizes from the host bars -- that's the draw. And as long as no money is in the pot, the game is legal.

"Based on their proposal and what they say they're going to do, it does not violate any state gambling or liquor laws," said Joe Hodgin, Kansas City district supervisor for the Missouri Division of Alcohol and Tobacco Control. "But we're going to monitor it."

The director of the Missouri Gaming Commission, Kevin Mullally, said it appeared the carefully crafted poker games do not violate the state's gambling laws. But he's still concerned about the potential impact on problem gamblers.

"The only issue I have with the Texas Hold 'Em phenomenon is from the problem gambling standpoint," Mullally said. "It's exploded, and there's lot of young kids playing that game at the grade school and high school level. That's fine if you're an adult. It's a concern when they're underage."

To play in an Amateur Poker League event, a participant must be 18.

So far, Wallace has signed up 39 affiliates in 16 Kansas cities; he already has a competitor, The Poker Pub Inc., which has operated at several spots in Lawrence since February. Next up, Kansas City.

"It's going to catch like wildfire," said James Doran, a co-owner of Side Pockets, a bar in Kansas City that will host the city's first Amateur Poker League event.

After signing a six- or 12-month contract with Wallace, bars like Side Pockets pay $225 per nightly session and in exchange get advertising, game tables, cards, chips, rules, and a scorekeeping system.

"These people make tons of money," Wallace said. "Some of these bars were about to close."

The poker nights proved so popular at Wichita's Radisson Broadview Hotel -- more than 500 people a night -- that the hotel decided to step back.

"For some places that might be a good piece of business," said Kim Angulo, the hotel's corporate sales manager. "But it wasn't the right kind of business for us. We're a full-service, upscale hotel, and the people who play those games aren't. Card players were putting their cigarettes out on the ballroom carpet."