Hawaii Texas Holdem Card Rooms

Only two States in the US don’t allow for any kind of organised gambling at all, and Hawaii is one of them. The other state is Utah. This means you won’t find any casinos, race tracks, or sports books in this island state. Naturally, this also means no live poker rooms with Texas holdem, and definitely no online poker.

Unlike some other states that turn a blind eye to the lottery, you also can’t partake in national lotteries in Hawaii. Because the state is sea locked, the old argument that’s been used across the continental United States that you can drive an hour or less into another state and gamble, and therefore your home state misses out on tax revenue from gaming, won’t really work here.

This is a real shame if you love playing Texas holdem poker, as you’ll really have no good option to turn to.

Social Holdem

Thankfully there’s a somewhat faded silver lining, and that is you can host a poker game and participate in social gambling, provided that it isn’t conducted in a public space or establishment, such as a hotel, motel, bar or nightclub.

With this in mind you should be able to find a lot of home social games around most of the larger cities in Hawaii. If you don’t have any friends that like poker, we suggest checking out social meet up sites online to find social games. On top of this you can always post in the 2+2 forum and see if you have any luck there. This forum is a great place to find information about poker.

Online Texas Holdem

If you love online poker then black Friday would have truly chilled you to the core. On black Friday all legal online poker was essentially shut down in the United States. You could play online in Hawaii before this, but the fact remains that you’ll probably have no chance of doing so again.

Some states have enacted their own legislation and allow for territory restricted online poker rooms, but due to Hawaii’s attitude towards gaming in general, this will most likely never happen in this state. If you want to play online legally you need to travel to a country that allows open online poker, or to one of the states in the US that has state online poker rooms available.

Usually we like to provide some advice on where to go nearby when you can’t play poker in your home city or state. This is somewhat more problematic in Hawaii as you’ll need to take a plane, or very long boat ride, to be able to find a live poker room. In many places that are located near the sea you can take a boat or cruise out into international water to be able to play poker.

Unfortunately this isn’t even an option in Hawaii due to rules that cruise lines must adhere to in order to operate around the islands. With this in mind, your best bet in respect to playing Texas holdem poker out of Hawaii is jumping on a plane to Las Vegas. You won’t be alone doing this as every year a huge number of residents travel to Vegas from Hawaii in order to get their gambling fill.

This isn’t too bad really and you’ll find many casinos in Las Vegas cater to the Hawaiian visitors; most notably the California Casino and Hotel downtown.

If you’re visiting Hawaii then you won’t be able to play any poker on the trip. If you’re a resident of the continental United States then consider visiting the Bahamas if you want that tropical beach holiday and some holdem action on the same trip.

Summary

Although we’ve been a little bit negative towards Hawaii and their laws around gambling, in all honesty it’s probably not a bad thing that they’ve outlawed it.

The place is truly beautiful and really is a nice getaway destination to unwind, relax, and escape some the societal pressures and issues that plague most cities and states in the US. To this end, perhaps it’s not such a bad thing that Texas holdem poker and gambling isn’t allowed in Hawaii.