Michele Lewis

Since there were not enough committee members present to vote on HB 222last Wednesday, it will happen this week.  If I remember correctly, the bill will need 6 out of 9 affirmatives in order to send HB 222 on up the hill.  For those of you who listened to the live stream, then you might have notice my mention of, special thanks to Mike Lavigne, Citadel’s 103 million poker hand study with results supporting poker as a game of skill.  Boy, Napoleon Dynamitewould be proud to know it isn’t that we’re just luuuucky.

As for my lame testimony.  Well, I had some last minute changes that sort of threw me off my original plan.  After all, do I really need to tell grown adults that raking a poker game would generate revenue for the state, create jobs in poker and tourism and the state is spending money on the inevitable? Nope and I already said two years ago.  Furthermore, I lack an economics degree to back up my point.  Although, I don’t think it takes an economist to understand the value of revenue vs overhead nor feel the burden of hard times.  But…like…whatever.

Additionally, I bit my tongue to respond to an Internet comment I read which was something like…so, what, we should hope our children grow up to be poker dealers?  As a mom, my first reaction was…I certainly understand her point.  Of course, even in Texas, we want our children to grow up to be doctors and lawyers and such.  Yep, that was partly from Willie Nelson.  However, the more I thought about it… I realized hey, wait a second.  Is that really that bad? No. It’s not.   And here’s two reasons why: 

1. If you have a child who wants to deal cards for money, then you have a child who wants to deal cards.  I would hope a parent would want there child to be able to deal cards in a nice regulated environment where they may even have health insurance rather than some backroom where they risk going to jail or worse.  So basically, if you need the government to step in to help you control your child as an adult then you need more therapy. Seriously.

2.  How many girls have told you they are stripping to pay for college?  Now, to each his own as pushing a ban on such institutions is not my point.  But isn’t it sort of an oxymoron that its legal for children to grow up and take their clothes off for money but bad, bad, bad if they touch those dirty cards that are used for go fish, bridge, gin rummy and gasp… poker?  Tha Horra!  Oh wait a second, we’re just talking about females so it’s probably OK.  Fine, then lets focus on males… was Jesus wrong for spinning the dreidel on Chanukah? If you find putting Jesus and Chanukah together in a sentence confusing or uncomfortable then click here.

Please excuse any grammar issues, I threw this up quickly as I’m busy teaching my 7 year-old son the quadratic equation to be a better poker player in order to pay for MIT where he wants to become a robotics engineer.