Indeed, Texans on virtually any side of the massive state can access casino gambling fairly easily, as every bordering state plus Mexico has casinos within 50 miles of Texas, according to a 2008 article by Texas-based attorney Markus Kypreos. Underground games frequented by the likes of Doyle Brunson, Amarillo Slim and the rest of the famed road gamblers notwithstanding, poker for Texas residents has come to mean relatively short trips across a border, be it state or U.S.
Gambling has been illegal for years in Texas, last in the open decades ago in Galveston. The flagship poker game the world over may have gotten its start in Texas - supposedly in Robstown but nobody can really be sure - but the state hasn't been known to be exactly friendly toward players of Texas hold'em, or indeed any other sort of poker.
