Tribes Deal a Tough Hand to California’s Card Clubs

It’s just before midnight. Wrinkled old men sit in wrinkled old chairs, drinking beer and telling lies while they await their next hand of Texas hold ‘em poker under a harsh bank of fluorescents at the Lake Elsinore Hotel and Casino.

Almost predictably, someone has played Billy Joel’s “Piano Man” at the bar, and the words--”the regular crowd shuffles in”--float into the card club. Many will play poker until dawn, then shuffle off to the adjacent hotel, where they’ve earned the players rate: $12 a night.

Two hours later, about 56 miles to the east, the neon glitz of the Morongo Casino beckons a very different crowd. Chili fries have given way to mushroom risotto. Instead of “Piano Man,” it’s “Life in the Fast Lane.” And poker has given way to the plink-plink-plink of slot machines, which, the casino boasts, paid out $420 million in the last year.

It is a tale of two gambling subcultures--California’s timeworn and endearing card clubs, and Native American casinos, which are fast becoming, to their fans, something akin to Vegas.

On a business level, the clash between the two cultures is about something a bit simpler: money.

Just a decade ago, there were 454 so-called card clubs in California. Today, there are believed to be fewer than 100--partly because the clubs’ regular crowd is getting old, partly because government regulations have become too unwieldy for mom-and-pop three-table clubs, and, more recently, because of the widening impact of Native American gambling.

Last year’s ballot initiative, Proposition 1A, amended the California Constitution to allow Native Americans to offer slot machines and other Vegas-style games at their casinos. That is expected, in coming years, to revolutionize Native American gambling--and card club owners across the state fear that they will be run out of business.

In February, a coalition of Bay Area card clubs filed a federal lawsuit challenging the legality of Proposition 1A. The lawsuit charges that California has created an illegal monopoly by allowing Native Americans to offer games no one else can, and argues that the ballot initiative violates equal-protection law by segregating the rules of gambling along ethnic lines.

“We’re going to be wiped out by the tribes,” said Haig Kelegian, a part owner of three card clubs in Commerce, Bell Gardens and Oceanside.

“The lawsuit has been interpreted as being against Indian gaming, and we’re not. But we think it’s unfair that Indian gaming interests can have Nevada-style, full gaming while we’re stuck not being able to do any of those things. You can’t compete with businesses that have a product you can’t deliver.”

Native American leaders say the card clubs are missing a crucial point: Indian bands are sovereign nations, and are entitled to operate under very different rules than non-Native American casino owners.

Because Proposition 1A did not grant non-Native Americans the right to operate Vegas-style casinos, card clubs must continue to dance around anti-gambling laws by merely renting seats at poker tables, typically for $12 to $15 an hour. Cardholders play against one another, not against the house.

George Forman, a San Rafael attorney who represents eight Native American bands, including the Morongos, says the card clubs’ protests are motivated by greed. Supporters of Native American gambling point out that the bands’ compacts with Gov. Gray Davis force them into profit-sharing agreements intended to support social services, from schools to health care, on non-gaming tribal land.

But card club owners “are private, for-profit companies that are looking to increase their profits and resuscitate a moribund industry,” Forman said.

“So this is a combination of greed coupled with a--let’s be charitable--lack of understanding about the law and the nature of tribal gaming. Their customers are getting old and dying. So they are trying to stop tribal governments from realizing the benefits that Congress intends they receive, and they are interfering in intergovernmental agreements between the state and sovereign tribes.”

Although Davis signed the compacts with the tribes allowing for the foray into Nevada-style gaming, he has said repeatedly that he does not want to see casinos in urban areas. And the lawsuit was prompted largely because of one Native American band’s bid to do just that--to take over and expand a card club in San Pablo, in Northern California.

“Indian sovereignty allows them some special privileges, but it’s never been extended to this,” said Alan Titus, a Bay Area attorney who represents another card club involved in the lawsuit.

The California attorney general’s office, which is defending the state’s compacts with Native American bands that offer casinos, is expected to formally answer the lawsuit in coming weeks. Officials there declined to discuss the specifics of their arguments, but Nathan Barankin, spokesman for Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer, said he believes the office’s role is to “defend the will of the voters.”

Card Clubs’ Suit Is Seen as Attempt to Add Slots

“It’s our belief that [Proposition 1A] is constitutional and the arguments raised by the card clubs lack merit,” he said.

Many also say that the lawsuit is a thinly veiled bid to add slot machines to card clubs. Slots are enormously profitable--Las Vegas Strip slots earn more than $100 apiece in profit each day, and many believe Native American casinos will average at least twice that because they have lower overhead costs.

While those debates play out across the state, card clubs keep chugging along, as quirky and friendly as ever.

Back at the Lake Elsinore Hotel and Casino, the card club can count on the likes of Glenn “Booga” Holland--a ubiquitous presence who plays poker about 80 hours a week and says he once played 66 hours straight.

Holland is such a regular that he’s on the payroll as a “casino host,” though he plays with his own money. He has a permanent room in the hotel, where he stays three to four nights a week while alternating between his real homes in San Diego and Rancho Cucamonga.

While glitzier casinos seem to thrive on image, there is a very different culture at card clubs. The clubs pride themselves on being havens for card-playing purists, real poker players who talk about “the flop”--the cards the dealer turns over at the beginning of a hand--and make fun of people who “gamble” by playing slot machines that are programmed to make a profit.

“I don’t consider myself a gambler,” Holland said. “I consider myself an independent businessman.”

It’s odd to hear someone describe any casino as “a family place,” but Holland does it repeatedly--and, indeed, there is no pretense here. Not only do they remember your name, they remember your birthday--and will pick an ice cream cake out of a revolving display case and carry it right to your poker table, candles and everything.

“There isn’t a person in this room whose name I don’t know,” Holland said. “This is a way of life.”

And that’s why many believe card clubs will survive in the face of new competition--because they offer an intimacy that larger, full-blown casinos don’t.

“The players here are different,” said Andy Perez, who plays poker about 30 hours a week, much of it in Lake Elsinore. “This is the nitty-gritty. You get a real game here. This is the real deal, and these places aren’t going anywhere.”