Austin’s metro area has a booming live poker industry and, no disrespect to any other card rooms in the city, it’s dominated by two clubs that are trying relentlessly to one-up each other.

Texas Card House Social (TCH) and The Lodge Card Club in Round Rock (Austin area), two of the biggest card clubs in the state, have more than 110 combined poker tables. Both rooms play host to the juiciest cash games and tournaments in Texas. And there’s a rivalry brewing between the businesses, each vying to not only be known as the best poker room in Austin, but across the Lone Star State.

Statewide, there’s a bit more competition with Champions Club in Houston, co-owned by Phil Hellmuth, and a few other clubs regularly hosting major events. Champions is set to host a $1 million guaranteed Main Event during its October Fall Poker Open, and the card room seems to offer seven-figure guaranteed tournaments every few months.

Matching Promotions

When Burger King introduces a new menu item, you can usually expect McDonald’s to come up with something similar. That’s just the nature of doing business in a competitive market, and the poker industry is no different. Austin poker players, especially those interested in increased expected value, are benefiting from a little friendly competition between TCH and The Lodge Card Club.

Texas Card House opened a new and much bigger location in the Texas capital city last month, and CEO Ryan Crow, who operates six TCH brand poker clubs across the state, introduced some juicy grand opening promotions that brought in massive crowds. There were 60 cash games running on Opening Night and more than 150 on waiting lists at one point.

The Austin location, on Thursday, kicked off a High Hand promotion that pays out $500 every hour from 3-8 p.m. through Friday. Players can qualify for a share of $20,000 by playing in no-limit hold’em and pot-limit Omaha cash games during those hours.

Doug Polk, co-owner of The Lodge Card Club, couldn’t just let his biggest competitor steal away his players. The Lodge (Austin location), in response to TCH’s enticing promotion, began a $500 Lucky Seat promotion on Thursday. This one pays out $500 to a random seat draw every 15 minutes on Thursday and Friday between the hours of, you guessed it, 3-8 p.m.

Polk’s poker room, which is also co-owned by vloggers Brad Owen and Andrew Neeme, ran a $100,000 freeroll last week, one of the best live poker room promotions ever.

Eating Well at The Lodge

Don’t expect this to be the end of the matched promotions between the two major card rooms. Crow said his company is “prepared for the long game,” and not just competing in Austin against The Lodge Card Club. He’s looking at the big picture in trying to dominate all major markets in the state.

But one advantage Polk’s room might have in this battle for Texas poker supremacy could be in the culinary area. Texas poker rooms differ from traditional land-based casinos in that they, due to legal reasons, operate as membership based clubs as opposed to collecting rake.

Gambling is illegal in Texas, so these card rooms don’t have the luxury of providing customers with other forms of gambling while waiting for a seat (slots, table games, etc.). And although most Texas poker clubs have some sort of food offering available to players, you won’t find many that have Michelin star chefs and mutliple options for grub. It’s typically one kitchen that offers a small basic menu.

But the largest room in the state — The Lodge Card Club in Austin — has some big plans on the horizon that could force other card clubs to step up their culinary game to remain competitive.

John Green, host of the Food Network’s On the Rocks reality TV show, is collaborating with The Lodge’s Round Rock location in running a restaurant next door. The purpose is to provide a food and drink service to members of the card room that is unique to the Texas poker scene.

The restaurant will operate as a separate business and offer international flavors and traditional American bar food created by a world-class chef. Polk is hopeful the kitchen will be ready to go by Oct. 25 but said “it might get pushed back a week or so.”

“Always a hassle with permits,” Polk said. “It’s going to be a separate entity. Should do well I think.”

Polk and his team opened a second poker room in San Antonio a few months back, which is expected to become the largest poker room in Texas within the next year or so. The Lodge Card Club San Antonio currently has 30 poker tables, but will be expanding in the coming months. The three-time World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet winner also attempted to open a club in a Dallas suburb earlier this year, but city officials shot down that plan.

For now, the biggest battle between Texas Card House and The Lodge Card Club takes place in Austin, where the rooms are vying to lure in all the local poker players. But, as both businesses continue to grow, they’ll likely one day square off for poker supremacy in other Texas markets.

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