More poker in California

In 1872 a gaming law was passed in California that outlawed all forms of gambling except poker. Apparently, the elected lawmakers of that day were all poker players and didn’t want their own gambling disrupted, so they left it out of the law. Ernie Primm, a gambling entrepreneur expanded on this legal loophole and founded the first card club in 1936 in Gardena California. A few years later, law enforcement officials closed him down for being a public nuisance. Primm sued, taking the case to the California Supreme Court. He convinced the court that what wasn’t specifically cited as illegal in the California Penal Code must be legal. Primm won the case, and Gardena began to licensed clubs in 1938, which was the beginning of Southern California’s multimillion-dollar poker industry we have today. An interesting note was the court only allowed five-card draw and lowball poker to be played at that time, later other games were added (see previous article). The city of Primm, Nevada, along Interstate-15 approximately 40 miles south of Las Vegas is named after Ernie Primm.