February 6, 2012 in Featured by Michigan Card Player
State struggles for more control
BY FRANCIS X. DONNELLY
THE DETROIT NEWS
Someone forgot to tell charity poker rooms in Michigan about the recession. Gambling licenses doubled in a year. Revenue jumped from $13 million to $166million in three years. The number of rooms ballooned to 192.
Not bad for something that didn’t exist until 2004.
But the rapid growth of the card rooms, a hybrid of private and charitable enterprise, comes with an expensive ante.
It strains the state’s ability to regulate it, legislators said. The Michigan Lottery’s charitable gaming division imposed a moratorium on new card rooms last year.
“They’re all over the place,” said Bob Hoff, 68, a St. Clair Shores retiree who splits his playing time between two poker rooms near each other in Macomb County. “Wherever you live, you can find one.”
The fledgling industry’s growth also stretches the concept of a charity.
Among the nonprofit groups that have benefited from poker rooms in Metro Detroit are 11 chambers of commerce, the Jackson Convention and Visitors Bureau, the Democratic Club of Taylor, the West River Yacht and Cruising Club in Grosse Ile, and Bass Anglers Sportsman Society (B.A.S.S.).
“It seems like everybody is a charity nowadays,” said Paul Sacks, president of B.A.S.S.’ Michigan chapter. “Every high school, every church, every Kiwanis club.”
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February 7, 2012 at 7:18 am
Not sure but are all the “charity groups” listed as legal non profits? I know our organization is a 501c3 and we had to organize, file paper work and not just say we are a non profit. Maybe if you have to prove you are a legal non profit that might make it easier for the state, or some other way to keep track. We were told we could only participate 4 times a years but does that mean at one establishment or 4 at each establishment? Don’t get me wrong we did make a profit on our first try but now it is hard to get another date because there are so many. I think it is a great way for non profits as long as they are non profits. Just my opinion.