South Carolina Texas Holdem Poker Room Reviews

If you live in the Palmetto State, your options are limited when it comes to Texas holdem poker, or any other form of gambling for that matter. This state has a hard-line stance on gambling and as such there are only a few forms that are accepted.

So, unless you live near the border, or have a load of frequent flyer miles saved up, you’ll need to take up another hobby that has no connection to gambling or wagering whatsoever. At least that is if you wish to stay in South Carolina.

Lottery

The only forms of gambling that are permitted in the state are lottery and charity bingo games. Aside from this you can’t bet on anything legally, and if you do so you could be in a lot of trouble with the authorities.

Even holding a poker home game will land you in hot water if you get caught. This was dragged through the courts for all to see in the last few years. A group of people who were running a home game were charged and convicted, only for this to be overturned on appeal.

They argued that poker was a game of skill and thus exempt from the game of chance laws that prohibit gambling. The state then appealed this decision again and won, with the original convictions being upheld. The fact that the state went to all this trouble to ensure that those who were running home games were charged and convicted paints a very clear picture for how gambling is treated in this particular state.

As we touched on above, you can gamble in South Carolina on the lottery, and also in charity bingo games. The hypocrisy is amazing, but the fact is the state takes in a massive amount of revenue from the lottery that they can then appropriate to other causes.

In South Carolina, the lottery raises money for education in the state with almost $5 billion raised since inception in 2002. This is an amazing amount of money and really goes a long way towards improving education. This money goes towards high school programs, maintenance and upkeep of schools and higher education support and scholarships.

It’s a win-win situation for the state as they can allow lottery gambling to occur while bringing in a decent amount of money to benefit the state in the long term. It does scream of hypocrisy though, especially considering that lottery is so badly stacked against the player and no skill is involved at all, unlike in poker.

So, if you wish to play lottery you’ll be able to participate in the big draws like Powerball and Mega Millions. They also offer a number of smaller games and scratch cards and pull tabs. These are really your only options in relation to lottery games in the state as it’s all state controlled and regulated.

Bingo

Bingo is permitted to raise money for charities and you’ll mostly find this in churches and other community organizations. This has been allowed from 1976, with stronger regulation coming in the 80s. In 2004 they also started permitting electronic bingo machines. For a game to take place the organization running it must be registered as a not for profit entity. This ensures that no money is being made for profit and it is going towards a charity.

Your Only Poker Option

If you love Texas holdem poker there’s one option for you in South Carolina, but it only applies if you live near Myrtle Beach. The Big M casino cruise is the only way you can gamble in the state, and even on this you’ll have to travel out into international waters to do so, or at least waters that aren’t considered state owned.

On one of their ships they offer a $2 / $5 no limit Texas holdem cash table and even have a bad beat jackpot. You’ll only be able to play for up to five hours each time. Even though this is quite limiting and doesn’t give you the flexibility you have with a real land based casino poker room, it should be able to scratch that itch you get without having to travel to New Jersey or Las Vegas.

This ship also offers a range of other casino games including blackjack, craps, roulette, 3 card poker, and Let It Ride. They also have slots if you really want to try to luck out and make back some of those bad beat losses at the poker table.

Finally, the Big M casino cruise also offers video poker games if you want to go it solo for a while, and as we all know the pay back percentages on these machines are quite good.

If you want land based poker action and you’re willing to drive, you’ll have to go a fair way to find a casino and poker room. The closest is probably in Jacksonville, Florida, depending on where you are in the state.

After this you’ll have to do some even more serious travel to West Virginia which offers five poker rooms, or all the way up to Maryland for some even larger rooms and decent action.

In these cases, you’ll probably be driving for longer than a flight to Las Vegas or New Jersey so you may as well take the latter option and really go all out for some awesome Teas holdem poker action.

Online Poker

Now we’ll turn our attention to the online world and try to provide you with some advice in relation to gambling online when you’re in South Carolina. Firstly, there are no direct laws that prohibit residents of this state from gambling online, although this is a bit of a grey area and the lack of law doesn’t always mean you are safe to do so.

Some states apply an interpretation to gambling law which suggests that land based laws apply to the online world as if playing online would be the same as playing in a land based casino. Even if they do this, your chances of getting in trouble with the law if you were to play online poker or other casinos at an off-shore site are very low. But you still could land in hot water, so we suggest always taking a cautious approach in this respect and we wouldn’t recommend that you play via an online offshore casino or card room.

The state of South Carolina is highly unlikely to regulate online poker soon. We’ve really covered earlier why this is the case but with such a negative and restrictive viewpoint in relation to all gambling it’s very unlikely they would buck this and implement regulations to allow for online poker organizations to operate within the state.

It may happen one day but it will be a long way off, and only maybe when people can really start to challenge the hypocrisy in allowing some forms of gaming and not others. Also, the challenge to the fact that poker is a game of skill and not luck, could well result in the game being legalized in the state soon. But this is probably a fair way off.

Native Indian Gaming

Native Indian tribes in South Carolina have been fighting for years to build casinos and offer gambling, but this has always been rejected by the government. It’s safe to say that this will continue to be the case at least for a few more generations. In 20 to 30 years however, when gaming and gambling begins to open up around the rest of the country South Carolina may well follow suit.

The simple fact is that the state is almost completely land locked by other states that also restrict gaming, so the close neighbor argument won’t work here until other states change.

Conclusion

If you love Texas holdem poker and live in South Carolina, you’ll need to move to a better state to be able to play regularly. You just won’t have enough options to keep you covered, unless you only want to play for a few hours every week or two.

This just isn’t enough for most players so you may need to make the big move south to Florida to get all the poker action you need. You’ll find a huge number of poker rooms in this state and a great community where people truly love the game and are able to play whenever they like. Florida residents and visitors are able to enjoy the relaxed state laws and the sheer volume of poker tables that exist everywhere in this sunny and warm state.

The future isn’t bright for Teas holdem in the state of South Carolina, so if you have plans to ride it out and wait, you could be waiting a long time. In the meantime, you’ll need to head out on a cruise or buy a ticket in the Powerball or Mega Millions to get any kind of poker or gambling buzz.