TABC and State Police Raid The Lodge in Round Rock
TABC and state police shut down The Lodge Card Club in Round Rock on March 11 — the biggest poker room in Texas. No citation details were confirmed. But The Lodge is an 18+ room, and that detail changes everything about why regulators showed up.
By now most of y'all have probably seen the news. TABC and state police rolled up on The Lodge in Round Rock Tuesday morning around 11 a.m. Biggest poker room in Texas, co-owned by Doug Polk, Brad Owen, and Andrew Neeme.
Players were told to take their chips home and come back when they reopen. Staff told tournament players they'd be refunded entries. The WPT Wildcard event that was supposed to happen this weekend has been postponed.
No official statement from the owners yet. No confirmed citation details that I've seen.
Now here's the part that's been on my mind since I heard about this. The Lodge is an 18+ room. That's something a lot of people didn't realize, including me honestly.
When you mix 18 and 19 year old's in the building with alcohol service, TABC showing up starts to make a lot of sense. Whether it was underage drinking, a license issue, how alcohol was being distributed, whether it was free or sold, all of that matters legally and none of it has been confirmed yet.
Texas poker rooms already operate in a gray area. Add alcohol into the equation with players who are legal to gamble but not legal to drink and that's a real compliance problem for any club.
If anybody has actual confirmed info on what the citation was for, send it to us. This situation has implications for every poker room in Texas and we need to be paying attention.
