Free Roll Poker games and Drink Cards

The majority of pub poker games in New Zealand, especially those run by poker leagues, are free-rolls. There is no entry fee; the intention is to circumvent the Gambling Act 2003 by falling outside the legal definition of "Gambling".

Typically there will be no monetary prize; the league will instead award the winning players merchandise such as card protectors, and a qualification for a final event, usually held once per month. The host venue may also award a bar tab.

The venue pays the league around $200-300 to run the game, hoping that the increased bar sales will cover the cost.

The league usually offers incentives to the players to support the bar by awarding extra chips for food and drink purchases. This may be done by means of "drinks cards", but is also often done in an informal or ad hoc way.

For freeroll tournaments, this practice is probably a necessary evil, but it does tend to distort the game. It also tends to promote drinking, and drunk people are not fun to play poker with.

Ideally, the amount of extra chips awarded should be in proportion to the amount spent at the bar, but in practice there is a lot of inconsistency. Sometimes, the amount of chips depends on who serves you at the bar rather than what you buy or how much you spend; sometimes, alcoholic drinks are given preference regardless of cost; sometimes a can of coke is awarded the same amount of chips as a pint of beer.

With these things in mind, my suggestion to all the leagues is to apply the following rules:

• Extra chips should be available only from about 30 minutes before the start of the tournament until about 2 hours after the start. Above all, "drinks cards" should not be able to be carried over to another night.
• The amount of chips awarded should be consistent and proportional to the amount spent, regardless of whether it is spent on food, alcohol or non-alcoholic drinks.
• There should be a limit to the amount of chips that can be bought this way; the total should not amount to more than a normal starting stack, and it should be possible to reach this total without getting drunk, even if all the bar spending was on alcohol.

Of the leagues I've played in so far, APL is the only one that has got all this right.

Incidentally, the practice of offering incentives to players to spend money at the bar is illegal in the state of Queensland, which has strict laws against encouraging alcohol consumption. As a result, bars in Queensland are heavily reliant on pokies, the most antisocial and destructive form of gambling ever devised.