The following account is based upon my visit to an El Paso, Texas, charity Casino Night on 15 January 2000. It would have been the seventy-first birthday of legendary civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Members of the El Paso chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha, a predominantly African American social fraternity, were celebrating. They were serving as volunteer dealers and croupiers at the North East El Paso Optimist Club’s Casino Night. The players were a multiracial group that would have made Dr. King proud. There were whites (some affluent, but mostly working class), Latinos (Hispanics from Mexico and the United States), Native Americans, and African Americans. They were of all age groups, although most seemed to be over fifty, or even sixty. There were also at least a dozen children, preteens and youngsters in their early teens, in the Optimist Hall.
Children play freely at a charity casino event attended by the editor in El Paso, Texas.
The twelve Alpha Phi Alpha volunteers were selling their services as dealers and were loaning their equipment – tables, cards, chuck-a-luck cage – to the Optimist Club in order to raise money for college scholarships for young African Americans. They charged $700 to run six blackjack tables, one poker table, a craps table, and a poker table. The North East Optimist Club cleared another $2,000 or more for its work with youth. Pictures of scout troops, Little League sports teams, summer camps, and fishing trips were in a case on the wall. At least one of the players, a thirteen-year-old, was in his scout uniform. A six- or seven-year-old girl was sitting next to her mother, and both were playing blackjack hands. The mother seemed to know the Optimist sponsors of the game.
The approximately 100 players had paid $20 each to enter the gambling hall. They began to gather at 6 p.m., and gambling started at 7:30 p.m. They were given a beef brisket meal that would have cost $6.95 down the street at the Village Inn. The meal was put together by Optimist volunteers (members and spouses) at one-third that cost. The persons entering the hall were also given $10,000 in casino cash in addition to their meal. The “cash” could be exchanged for chips, the smallest value of which was $1,000. In other words, the players were sold single lowest-value chips at a cost of approximately $15 for ten ($20 minus the cost of the meal), or $1.50 each. The players were also permitted to purchase additional chips at a cost of $5 for $10,000, or $ .50 each. One man was observed writing a $50 check for $100,000 in casino money, or 1,000 “$1,000” chips. Later in the evening – the gambling went beyond 10 p.m. – an Optimist volunteer was giving bonus chips to anyone spending more than $100 (real money) for extra chips.
During the gambling session, Optimist members were drawing numbered ticket stubs for door prizes. The biggest prize was a round trip air ticket to Las Vegas, Nevada. Other prizes were for meals at local restaurants and free bowling games and movie tickets. At the end of the gambling session, the players gathered for an auction of prizes. The money they won at gambling could now be offered in bids for their prizes. The biggest prize was a 1999 model television set, probably carrying a retail value of $300. Other prizes included four automobile tires of similar retail value, as well as smaller appliances, tool sets, and various kitchen dishes. Organizers of the event indicated that merchants had donated the prizes or sold them to the Optimists for cost. They could also discount the full retail value from business revenues for taxation purposes.
The players were gambling by any definition of the term. They were advancing something of value – real money – in order to make wagers at games of chance. As a result of the play at the games of chance, they were able to claim prizes that had values greatly in excess of the money they had individually wagered. They also had participated in raffles that involved buying a ticket, having numbers drawn by chance methods, and winning prizes of greater value than the cost of tickets.
The games were played in the same manner as they would be played in a Las Vegas casino, albeit hands were dealt more slowly, and the dealers advised players on the game rules as well as expectations for certain kinds of play. (They generally advised players to assume that cards to be dealt at blackjack would likely be ten-value cards—something that is true 31 percent of the time). The blackjack cards were dealt in the same sequence as in Las Vegas, and players were allowed to split and double down. The dealer hit on sixteen and held on seventeen. A four-deck shoe was used. The craps rules were identical to casino craps, and the three-dice game of chuck-a-luck was played as it used to be played when it was popular in Las Vegas several decades ago. All these games were clearly house-banked gambling games. In the poker game, the dealer competed with the players on an even odds basis, as his hand was but one of the several played, and the best hand won the pot played by all the players. The dealer contributed to the pot the same as the players did.
The Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity ran about one game a month through the year in El Paso and also in nearby New Mexico. They would often have ten blackjack tables, as well as poker, chuck-a-luck, craps, and roulette—for a service cost of $1,000. In the summer, they ran their own game and drew over 300 players. Their biggest month was May, when they ran games for high school graduation classes. The president of the fraternity indicated that twenty years ago they had a lawyer go closely over all the rules in Texas to ensure that everything being done was legal. He certainly agreed that the games were casino games and that they were gambling games. The event was clearly advertised in the El Paso newspaper as a Casino Night. Some may question whether it was legal in all aspects, but there can be no doubt that the state of Texas permitted the gambling games at the event. They were publicly advertised, and the public was invited in. An armed law enforcement officer from the police force of the city of El Paso was present at the event from the beginning to the end. Auxiliary police personnel were also present at all times. A former El Paso city councilman was prominently present, smiling and shaking hands with players and dealers. The Alpha Phi Alpha’s president indicated that there was no local or state license or fee for the event.
The auction at the end of the session added an extra element to the gambling that is not present in other casinos. The players would have to assess their relative wealth vis-a-vis other players in order to decide how to bid. It is quite likely that only the tires and television carried money values higher than the money values of the amounts wagered by most individual players. At the end of Las Vegas games, winners and losers are clearly identified, and players need not go through another gambling session in order to find out if they are winners.