Texas Card House (Dallas) Prevails in Legal Challenge

Texas Card House (TCH) in Dallas, Texas, won a major victory in court on Friday, September 5th against the City of Dallas, which had been trying to shut the poker room down for three years. Dallas lost its case against Texas Card House in August 2024, but city officials appealed to the Texas Supreme Court. The court has refused to hear the appeal, leaving Texas Card House standing as the victor in these legal maneuverings.

How Does Texas Card House Operate?

Texas Card House operates six locations throughout Texas (Austin, Dallas, Las Colinas, Houston, Spring, and Rio Grande Valley). Its first location opened in 2014 in Austin. The company is run by owner and CEO Ryan Crow.

Ryan Crow, Owner of Texas Card House

Texas Card House uses the membership model loophole to get around strict Texas anti-gambling laws. Charging a rake to host poker games is prohibited under Texas law, so TCH and other establishments like it instead charge membership fees and/or equipment rental fees. The poker games are allegedly free for all members to enjoy, and nobody has to directly pay the house anything to play.

This business model isn't exactly airtight from a legal perspective, and other similar businesses have been shut down by the authorities in the past, like when two poker clubs in Houston were raided in May 2019 or when the Copa Club in the DFW area was shut down in February 2025.

Yet, the authorities have often found their efforts to shutter these establishments come to naught as when Harris County dropped all charges it had brought against defendants in the May 2019 cases. TCH's recent win against its legal detractors further demonstrates that these operators have solid arguments in their favor too.

More About the Relevant TX Law

The key provision in Texas anti-gambling law that's relevant to this situation is found in Section 47.02 (b) of the Texas Penal Code, Title 10:

(b) It is a defense to prosecution under this section that:


(2) no person received any economic benefit other than personal winnings; and

(3) except for the advantage of skill or luck, the risks of losing and the chances of winning were the same for all participants.

As long as these three conditions are satisfied, the activity in question is not considered gambling. The third element is also the most straightforward and is basically met by running fair games and not permitting any cheating or unfair advantage.

The first and second stipulations are somewhat vague and open to interpretation. By calling themselves membership clubs, Texas cardrooms are attempting to designate themselves as private places for the purposes of this law. They charge membership fees and generate revenue by selling food and other items, not via a traditional rake, which they argue, under 2) above, means that they're not receiving economic benefit from gambling.

All of these details are subject to interpretation. This is why there are sometimes attempts to shut these poker clubs down while at other times, officials opt to leave them be.

About Texas Card House's Legal Journey

In October 2020, Texas Card House sought and received a certificate of occupancy from the City of Dallas. It duly opened for business, but then in December 2021, the city decided to revoke this approval.

The Texas Card House Location in Dallas

TCH filed an appeal with the Dallas Board of Adjustment in January 2022. This body decided in favor of Texas Card House in March 2022 by a 5 – 0 vote. The Board of Adjustment argued that TCH was operating according to its initial plan, and nothing had changed in the intervening time. As Board member Kathleen Frankford noted, “I'm pretty disappointed in this process, that it seemed like the opinion was changed either by political reasons or possibly public backlash…It seems pretty clear to me that the business is doing what they set out to do.” The Board reinstated TCH's permit.

Dallas' chief building official, David Session, then took TCH and the Board of Adjustment to court in April 2022 seeking a reversal of the Board of Adjustment decision. In October 2022, Civil District Court Judge Eric Moye ruled against TCH, saying that the City of Dallas had every right to revoke a certificate of occupancy if it believed that the initial granting of such a certificate was erroneous.

TCH owner Ryan Crow appealed in November 2022, and in August 2024, the appellate court made its decision. Justice Bonnie Lee Goldstein found that the trial court was in error in reversing the decision of the Board of Adjustment and ordered that TCH's certificate of occupancy be restored. The Court of Appeals basically reasoned that only in the case of an egregiously mistaken decision from the Board of Adjustment should the court have presumed to overrule their judgment. As long as the Board's decision was one that a reasonable person could make, the court had exceeded its remit by attempting to substitute its own judgment for the Board's.

In December 2024, a petition for review of this opinion was filed by Dallas' chief building official, now Andres Espinoza. However, the court denied this petition on Sept. 5, 2025, so TCH will be able to operate like normal now and in the foreseeable future.

Competitors Unite

One interesting wrinkle to the legal struggles surrounding Texas Card House is the fact that a competing cardroom, the Lodge Card Club, filed a brief with the court in favor of TCH. The Lodge is owned by Doug Polk, Andrew Neeme, and Brad Owen, and it has locations in Round Rock (near Austin) and San Antonio.

The Lodge clarified that it did not receive any compensation from TCH for filing the amicus curiae brief. Rather, it did so to protect its own business model and that of similar card rooms throughout Texas.

The Lodge argued that closing Texas Card House would overturn the well-understood “safe harbor” provisions of Texas law that cardrooms had been successfully employing for decades. Under the legal doctrine of “legislative acceptance,” when the legislature fails to act to change a de facto understanding of the law and what is permitted under it, the courts should assume that the activity in question is legally allowed.

Avoid These Disputes by Playing Online

Of course, there's an alternative to playing live Texas poker. You can head online to play at any time of your convenience right from your home. Then you won't need to worry about your favorite cardroom being shut down by local authorities.

There are a number of Texas online poker sites, and we feel that Ignition Casino is the best of them. It will grant you a 150% up to $1,500 poker bonus and a similar casino bonus as long as you make your first deposit with crypto-currency. Click the link below to get started:

For more information about this site, check out this accurate Ignition Poker review. If you're interested in your other options as a resident of the Lone Star State, head over to this Texas online poker guide. If you live in another state, then perhaps this page devoted to offshore poker in the USA would be more to your liking.

Sept. 10, 2025 – by Max Golden, Editor-in-Chief