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| Poker expo with play money gets busted |
So let's get this straight: Southern Californians can legally squander their entire paychecks every week on the state-sponsored lottery, lay huge bets on horses at any number of racetracks, play bingo and other card games at all-night clubs until they collapse from exhaustion, and of course, drive an hour or two for Indian casinos that nearly replicate the Las Vegas experience.
But gaming demonstrations with fake money are verboten?
Incredibly, it appears to be true. As the Press-Telegram's Felix Sanchez reported Saturday, a poker convention scheduled for early December at the Long Beach Convention Center has been canceled, after the California attorney's general's office said some of the scheduled activities were illegal.
Yet, the poker convention wasn't going to feature any real poker. No actual money was ever going to change hands from gaming. According to the event's lease, the gaming demonstrations were to be conducted with fake money. A slot machine demonstration was to offer coupons from its sponsor, a tribal casino.
Convention Center officials canceled the event after it caught the attention of nanny-state enforcers in the California attorney general's office. And now the promoter says he's out hundreds of thousands of dollars.
For no good reason at all.
"Casino night" events are staged all the time, for corporate parties, birthday parties, proms, charity events and many other occasions. The only caveat is that Monopoly-style money is used and that's exactly what the California Gaming Expo was planning to do.
The cancellation of this event is beyond absurd. To target a weekend of fake-money games when legal gambling is ubiquitous and illegal gambling is flourishing on the Internet is nothing short of bizarre.
Unfortunately it's probably too late for the attorney general's office to rescind the order. But the next time it decides to micromanage the harmless business affairs of convention promoters, it ought to stay out. |
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