Berea: Private poker room may doom charity games

BEREA -- It's called the Gemini Players Club. For a $25 initiation fee plus a daily fee of $25, you can play Texas Holdem all day. At the Nautica Flats Charity Poker games, players have to donate between $10 to $20 per hour. That price difference is crushing the charity games.

Ever since the Gemini Players Club opened in Berea, the number of players showing up at the Nautica Charity Poker room in the Flats has been sliding dramatically.

Cleveland-area charities have made thousands of dollars in the last few years because of the games at the Powerhouse. Those days may be over.

Mark Konopka, director of the Konopka Scholarship fund, was hoping to raise more money for his charity again this year at Nautica. More than 40 different charities take turns staffing the poker tables during the year.

Konopka said, "It's almost empty. If you've been here before in the last couple years, you would see 18-20 tables full of players. We started off tonight with just 4 or 5 tables and it hasn't really grown."

Konopka added, "This makes it tough. We raise money to give to kids for a scholarship at Amherst High School, in memory of a brother of mine. And that decline in players really takes money away from what we can give."

There is no lack of action in the plain strip mall on Bagley Road in Berea, Ohio. There are so many players at the Gemini Players Club that every parking space is taken.

A Gemini dealer who calls himself "Poker Paul" said, "It's only 5 o'clock and we've already got 7 games going. I expected 3 or 4."

Poker Paul added, "Here our dealers know what they are doing and the price is right for the players."

Player Shaun Greenwood was taking a cigarette break outside and agreed about the price, "It's just a $25 flat fee when you come in, if you're playing cash games and that gets you good for the day."

Moments later. a Gemini manager emerged and ordered us off the property. "You cannot come inside. Absolutely not," he said, as he went back into the poker room.

The Ohio Revised Code, Section 2915.02 (A) says, "No person shall do any of the following: (2) Establish, promote, or operate or knowingly engage in conduct that facilitates any game of chance conducted for profit or any scheme of chance."

The same language can also be found in the Berea City Ordinance 917.02.

Berea Law Director Gregory Sponseller said that the Gemini Players Club gambling activity is "not clearly illegal."

Sponseller said, "The activities out there involve a daily use fee. There is no money taken from the gambling activity itself. And therefore it's not clearly illegal."

The Gemini club charges each player a one time initiation fee of $25, and then a daily fee of $25 to play in the cash games. The fee to play in a tournament is $10.

The parking lot outside Gemini has become so packed that it's become a burden on the neighboring businesses in the strip mall.

Powerhouse Gym manager Matt Hibsman shook his head when asked about the increased activity next door.

Hibsman said, "It's non-stop. It's packed from 2 p.m. to 2 in the morning. And for customer parking, it kills us."

The Gemini games are clearly killing the action in the Flats. Nautica Charity Poker manager, Jim Vanni looked around the room and said, "It's not looking good. It's looking like it might last another 4 months down here, I don't know."

Vanni added, "It's a bottom line thing. Where are players going to choose to play? Where you pay per hour or once per day? We can't compete with that."