Scrapbook To Offer Casino-Style Blackjack

Thu., Aug. 14, 1997

By Mike Prager mikeprager15@gmail.com (509) 459-5454

The Scrapbook Restaurant is changing its card room to offer Las Vegas-style blackjack starting next month. New state laws are giving card room operators more choices for attracting players.

Owner Dave Montecucco said he will expand the card room at the Lincoln Heights Shopping Center from five to nine tables.

Each table will have a dealer hired and trained by the house. Bet limits will range from a $1 minimum to a $25 maximum per hand.

“It is a friendly, social game,” Montecucco said. “It’s not going to be cutthroat.”

He said 20 to 30 players show up each evening to play cards now, and that number could double when the new blackjack games are offered.

The Legislature in 1996 opened the door for casino-style blackjack by adopting a pilot program for house-run games. The Mars Hotel downtown was the first Spokane establishment to offer the games.

Additional legislation this year gives card room owners several choices in how to offer blackjack or poker. The law gives options for the house to take its cut off the game, said Amy Patjens, legal adviser for the state Gambling Commission.

The owners must enter with the commission a contract that outlines the house take and the way the games are run.

In the past, one of the blackjack players had to be willing to act as dealer and banker for the game. The house charged players for sitting at the table.

Montecucco said he plans to have a house dealer playing with a boot of six card decks. The house will take $2 for each hand that is dealt, a fee that is known as the “rake,” he said.

The city will collect a 20 percent tax on the house take. The state collects an annual license fee.

Initially, the house will set up a blackjack bank to pay winners. As the bank grows, the house will start offering special incentives and payouts to keep the bank from getting larger, Montecucco said.

A Spokane-based Gambling Commission agent will be assigned to the Scrapbook to monitor its games and make sure it complies with state law.

In other changes, Montecucco said he will start offering $1 pull-tabs with maximum payouts of $599. Also, pull-tab games will be offered for more expensive types of merchandise, such as television sets.

He said the state is liberalizing some gambling rules to help taxpaying operators compete with casinos on Indian reservations.

, DataTimes

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