A Dallas poker room can stay open after the Texas Supreme Court declined to review the city’s appeal Friday — potentially ending the city’s pricey, years-long legal battle against itself.
The city’s head of building inspections gave Texas Card House, a poker room in northeast Dallas, a permit to operate in 2020. Then the building official changed course, alleging the business was running an illegal gambling operation and the city granted the permit in error.
Gambling is generally illegal in Texas unless it happens in a private place, no one receives any economic benefit except for personal winnings and the risks are equal for everyone involved. Only paying members who are vetted can play at Texas Card House, attorneys for the business said in court documents, and the business doesn't take any of the money being gambled.
The building official revoked Texas Card House’s certificate of occupancy in 2021. After the business appealed the decision to the Dallas Board of Adjustment the next year, the board overturned the building official’s ruling and reinstated Texas Card House’s permit.
That led the building official to sue the Board of Adjustment over what it said was an illegal overruling.
The high court’s denial of the case leaves in place a Dallas appeals court’s decision last year that the city must reinstate Texas Card House Dallas’ operating permits. The trial court sided with the Dallas building official, but the court of appeals ruled the trial court didn’t adequately consider whether the Board of Adjustment’s decision was actually wrong.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the city said it “is aware of the court’s ruling and is evaluating its options.” Attorneys for the card house, which intervened in the lawsuit, could not immediately be reached for comment.
With each approval of hundreds of thousands of dollars in attorney fees for the lawsuit — which comes from taxpayer dollars — city council members Chad West and Omar Narvaez opposed both the spending and the potential loss in business revenue that could come from shutting down poker houses. Council members did, however, consider ways poker houses could operate legally with the creation of a new city ordinance.
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