Best Poker Rooms In Portland

4/2/2022

The Lottery’s 1992 video poker lottery terminal network was the first centrally controlled gaming system in the U.S. In 2005, the VLT network added Class III Vegas-style line games for slots. Eight out of Oregon’s nine federally-recognized American Indian tribes have negotiated tribal-state gaming compacts.

Oregon can be considered as a poker-friendly State, but only when it comes to land-based poker games. The Beaver State has over 20 different poker rooms which are available in exclusive ‘member clubs’ and tribal land-based casinos which operate without making a profit from these poker games. Best Poker Room In Portland, hobart casino cafe, casino coins gw2, artemis poker classic 2.

Portland Or Poker Rooms

CLOSED UNTIL MULTNOMAH COUNTY
ENTERS PHASE 2 OF COVID-19 REOPENING

Hours of operation during Phase 1, 10:30 AM to 10 PM

We’re the largest and most spacious social gaming poker room in Portland, Oregon for those 21+. We offer multiple daily Texas Hold’em tournaments and shootouts from 10:30am to closing. Normal buy-ins start from $20 to $100, check our schedule for details. There is no house rake for any of our games. All entry money is distributed to players.

We also offer pool, video games, and board games, or enjoy one of our large screen TVs for watching your favorite sporting events or entertainment. We have a full food, beer, and wine menu that will cater to everyone’s appetites. We have tons of parking, which makes a stress-free transition from parking to poker.

Our $20 daily membership fee gives you access to the club for the entire business day.
The Final Table does not withhold any prize pool money.

About a year after Portland's poker clubs first came under state scrutiny, the state lottery has fired the latest round in the battle by informing Portland Meadows that its video lottery license will be pulled effective Oct. 30, Willamette Weekreported Tuesday.

Portland Meadows currently operates the largest video lottery terminal offering in the state, with 10 terminals that produced $1.83 million in revenue for the state and $350,000 for Portland Meadows last year, Week reported. However, Oregon Lottery canceled that contract on the premise that the poker games offered at Portland Meadows violate state law.

Best Poker Rooms In The Us

Portland Meadows asked the Lottery to reconsider but has apparently been rebuffed and slapped with the Oct. 30 deadline.

It's the continuation of a battle that's been going on for over a year between Portland poker rooms and state authorities.

Player Havens Come Under State Scrutiny

As recently as last year, Portland was a haven for poker players, with rake-free games offered at a variety of establishments that were officially social gaming clubs but unofficially card rooms that skirted around state law via a variety of creative means.

For example, the clubs charged covers rather than rake to get around laws that establishments couldn't directly profit from the games — 'social gaming' is allowed via a 1973 state law. Professional dealers couldn't pitch cards because of state law, so they worked in an unofficial capacity for tips.

And cash games were disguised as 'shootouts' — one-hour chip chop tournaments that skirted rules disallowing bets of more than $1.

All of it added up to rake-free cash games and tournaments that awarded thousands of dollars in prize money.

The good times didn't last, however, as state authorities cracked down in 2016. A number of popular poker clubs closed, while Portland Meadows appears to have rolled on despite the unfavorable rulings.

Meadows the Latest Target

Portland Meadows offers gaming entertainment in a variety of forms, including live horse racing, off-track betting, video lottery terminals and poker. It promotes the poker room via its website and social media, advertising $1/2 cash games and tournaments with guarantees between $1,000 and $10,000.

It appears the state, though, hasn't given up.

In a letter dated Aug. 30 responding to Portland Meadows' request for reconsideration, the Oregon Lottery fires a number of assertions charging Portland Meadows with continued defiance of state law. Among them:

In January 2017, an undercover detective observed 'casino-style card tables' that did not feature the deal rotating among the players.
Players were winning up to $2,300 in a single hand, in violation of the $1 rule.
Players had been instructed by staff to tip the dealers, while players were discouraged from dealing.
The house acting as a bank, a direct violation of state law.

Portland Meadows has disputed some of these charges in legal battles and maintained that it is in compliance with state law. However, officials for Oregon Lottery apparently disagree, as they laid out in the letter.

First, they said the cover charge violates the state law on 'house income.' Second, that holding players' money, even when it gets redistributed, violates the prohibition on a 'house bank.'

Therefore, the letter states, they can terminate the contract allowing the lottery terminals because of 'apparent threat to the fairness, integrity, security, or honesty of the lottery' based on the retailer, in this case Portland Meadows.