Gambling Expansion Could Go To Voters

Facing the prospect of a constitutional amendment that could put control of future gambling expansion in the hands of voters, legislative leaders are working behind the scenes on a pared-down plan to cement a deal with the Seminole Tribe and pacify cardroom operators.

The “Voter Control of Gambling Amendment,” largely bankrolled by a Disney company and the Seminole Tribe of Florida, will be on the November ballot after meeting petition requirements this past week. If approved, it would require voter approval for any proposed form of casino gambling, an issue now largely controlled by the Legislature.

Sen. Bill Galvano, a Bradenton Republican who has been a key player in crafting gambling legislation for more than seven years, told The News Service of Florida the constitutional amendment would give the Seminole Tribe a “a monopoly” over gambling in the state.

Galvano called the constitutional amendment “a game changer,” after industry insiders had predicted that gambling issues would be off the table during the legislative session that ends in March.

“It does require us to really look hard at any possible changes we can make in the gaming world at the pari-mutuel level and to solidify or make some final decisions with the Seminole Tribe. Because the way this amendment is worded, and it’s still being analyzed, but once it passes, if it passes, will mean the Legislature is divested of control of this issue, leaving a monopoly for the Seminole Tribe, and their continued payments to the state of Florida in jeopardy,” said Galvano, who is slated to take over as Senate president after the November elections.

The Seminoles have been trying to get the Legislature to re-authorize a deal, signed in 2010, that gave the tribe “exclusive” rights to operate banked card games, such as blackjack, at most of its casinos in exchange for a minimum of $250 million each year. The agreement — part of a 20-year deal called a “compact” — expired in 2015, but the tribe has continued to offer the games.

After the card games portion of the agreement expired, the tribe sued the state over wildly popular “designated player” card games offered by more than a dozen pari-mutuel cardrooms. A federal judge in 2016 ruled in favor of the tribe, and Gov. Rick Scott and the Seminoles reached an agreement this past year in which gambling regulators promised to take “aggressive enforcement action” against pari-mutuels that might be violating state law in the way they conduct designated player games.

The agreement expires in March, which could be problematic for state lawmakers trying to figure out how much money they have to spend in the future, according to Galvano.

“There is the possibility that, with the designated-player game issue not resolved, that the tribe may elect to stop paying. They have not told me that, but that’s a real possibility,” he said.

Whether the Seminoles continue to pay “is contingent on their satisfaction” with how well state gambling regulators police the games, the senator said.

For the past several years, lawmakers have repeatedly attempted —- and failed —- to reach consensus on a revamped gambling deal. While the Senate has been more amenable to an expansion of gambling, the House has been reluctant, and ultimately the deals died.

Best Card Games 2018

We live in the golden age of board games, but one of the downsides of lavishly designed modern board games is that they tend to be expensive - and many of them come in massive boxes, too. If you'd rather have something that won't break the bank and can be easily chucked in a bag, your best bet is to go for a card game instead.

Card games tend to be simpler, lighter, cheaper and quicker to play than their board-based cousins, but that doesn't mean they lack depth or quality: the ones in this article are all strategically rich and beautiful to look at.

In truth most board games involve cards of some kind (Cosmic Encounter, Pandemic and Celestia are all based around them) but when putting together this guide we chose to restrict ourselves to ones where cards are the only significant component. A few of these come with tokens to tally scores or money, but that's it - no pieces moving around a board (no board, for that matter), and no dice.

Finally, note that we've ignored traditional card games here, simply because they are too immense a subject. But a standard 52-card deck is the most cost-effective purchase of all.

1. Coup

There's more than a touch of Poker about this game, from the starting deal (two cards to each player) to the I-don't-believe-you-oh-no bluffing/challenging mechanism.

It's super-simple in concept. The deck contains only 15 cards: three each of ambassador, assassin, captain, contessa and duke. On your turn you can take any one action (such as swapping your cards, or assassinating another player), many of which can only be taken if you've got a specific card - but you can lie about what you've got. Many actions can be blocked by certain cards, and you can lie about that too.

The only downside to all this lying is that if you get challenged and caught, you lose one of your two lives. If you get challenged and were telling the truth, your challenger loses a life.

And the result is a tense and mind-bending game where you spend half an hour or so climbing inside each other's heads and driving yourself mad, in a good way.

2. Love Letter

Love Letter is simple, and pure, and pretty much perfect for short gaming sessions and for warming up before something more demanding.

Here's what you get: 16 cards; a handful of counters; the rulebook; and a little red bag to store it all in. But from these ingredients an exceptionally compelling game has been cooked up - one which can be grasped by drunks in 10 minutes, but keeps revealing new depths and subtleties for months after.

The aim of the game is to end the session with the highest surviving card (the highest of all is the princess, whom everyone is trying to woo) but there are numerous sneaky ways to knock out your opponents before it gets to that point. Brilliant stuff.

3. Sushi Go

An antidote to the stressful brain workout of something like Coup, Sushi Go is a gentle collecting game with a touch of strategy to keep things interesting.

The (beautifully illustrated) cards each show sushi or related food items: sashimi, wasabi, maki rolls, dumplings and whatnot. You're dealt a hand of these cards and have to decide which one you want to add to your collection - and then pass the rest of the hand on to the player on your left.

Complication one: the value of each card varies depending on what else is in your and others' collection. Some items only give you any points at all if they are part of a set, for example; some are competitive - whoever has the most gets the points; and some are never worth points themselves but modify the value of (certain) others. So your decisions call for prediction and risk assessment.

Complication two: because of the passing-on of the hands and the fact that others players' collections are visible, canny players quickly build up information about the sort of round it's going to be: the card types that are rare or common, and the ones that are likely to be snaffled by other players.

It's potentially quite a deep game, really, but there's still room for players like me who always collect the same thing, and constantly refer to themselves as the "dump-king".

4. Cards Against Humanity

Cards Against Humanity is not a game you would want to play with younger children, but marketing itself as "a party game for horrible people" is perhaps taking things a step too far. We'd suggest Cards Against Humanity is a game for people who have a wicked sense of humour, and who are not easily offended.

There are various rules you can use, but in Cards Against Humanity's simplest form each player takes 10 white cards (answer cards), picking up another card for each hand they play. You then take it in turns to read out a black card (question cards), starting with the last person to go for a number two (an interesting question in itself).

Having heard the question you match what you think is the funniest answer you have to hand, then the 'Card Czar' chooses their favourite and it gets an Awesome point. Whoever gets the most points wins the overall game, which can go on for as long as you like.

The catch is these aren't the sort of questions and answers you might hear in pleasant company. When presented with a question such as 'What's that smell?' it's up to you to judge the temperament of the group and decide whether to select something like 'Grandma's knickers' or 'A pyramid of severed heads' as your answer.

(We went for a third option in the most recent game we played, but our choice was far too distasteful to publish on Tech Advisor. And yes, we did win the point.)

The standard deck costs £20, but you can also buy expansion packs. Should you find the cards too lame it's worth knowing you can also create your own deck: Cards Against Humanity is available for free under a Creative Commons licence. You can download the rules and blank question and answer cards from the website.

5. Bohnanza

If you like collecting gold and looking at anthropomorphic drawings of beans, this is the game for you.

The aim is to plant beans of a single type - chilli bean, dancing bean, coffee bean - in a 'field' (ie a row of cards on the table) and then swap them for pieces of gold when it gets numerous enough. The rarer the bean type, the better the exchange rate you'll get.

The problem is that you can only have two fields at once (at the start - it's possible to buy a third later), and you must play your cards in the order they were dealt. Which means that if you're unlucky, or plan badly, you could find yourself constantly having to plough up and discard fields of beans that haven't yet hit the payout point, so that you can free up the area for a new type that you need to play.

So it's partly about thinking ahead, and there's a surprising amount of depth to this. But it's also about convincing the other players to make an exchange at a key moment, which is often the only way to avoid disaster.

A Card Game About Unicorns Has Raised Almost $2 Million on Kickstarter

A new card game called Unstable Unicorns concludes its fairy-tale Kickstarter campaign tonight.

Creator Ramy Badie originally set out to earn $10,000 in one month to fund production of the game. He reached his goal in just 71 minutes and has, as of this writing, collected more than $1.8 million for the project from more than 30,000 backers—more than every other project that's currently live on the fundraising website.

“Tabletop games are huge on Kickstarter right now,” says company spokesperson David Gallagher. “We've really become an important hub for tabletop fans, and many of them keep coming back to find new and cool projects to support. It's also become much easier for independent game designers to get their games manufactured and shipped.”

Though the game seems built around Silicon Valley's obsession with the mythical creature (and its use of the term to denote startups with billion-dollar valuations), it's not. It's simply a game built for people—and perhaps magazines—who love unicorns.

Players of the game are tasked with building a "unicorn army." There are three types of unicorns in the deck—baby, basic, and magical—and the first person to have seven unicorns in their hand (a “stable”) wins. "Be warned," the game's Kickstarter page says. "If you get ahead too quickly, you'll become everyone's target." (Just like in Silicon Valley.)

There are several obstacles in the way of a player's victory. "Neigh" cards are used to cancel out opponents’ strategic moves. A “Pandamonium” card makes it so that “all your Unicorns are considered Pandas and NOT Unicorns.” (Oh, right.) The game's makers say it's suitable for two to eight players, ages 14 and older, and the latest donors can expect a February delivery date.

“If the thought of aggressive, violent and occasionally seductive unicorns appeals to you, we really appreciate your support on this project,” says Badie in the campaign video.

He later tells Fortune: "I've always had an odd obsession with unicorns, featuring them in a lot of our shirt designs and products. To me, unicorns have historically been mythical creatures that are associated with majesty and perfection, and I like turning that on its head." Or horn, if I may.

The St. Louisan, who is in his late 20s, designed the game’s mythical characters, which resemble My Little Pony- hued Pokémon. According to an article about him in The St. Louis Business Journal, while working toward his undergraduate degree in neuroscience, Badie entered t-shirt design contests to subsidize his tuition. In 2012, he delayed medical school to found TeeTurtle LLC, an e-commerce venture aiming to “scratch your insatiable itch for cute, funny, pop culture-y shirts.” TeeTurtle’s first year saw $750,000 in sales, and another $7 million in sales was projected for 2014.

Now Badie has a new addictive project. "Unstable Unicorns is a strategic card game about everyone’s two favorite things: destruction and unicorns," the project's website says. Who wouldn't want to scratch that itch?"It's been a thrilling ride," Badie says, "and I've already found myself thinking about a sequel."

The Vailix Links Card Game And Comic Books To Musical Narrative

Rob Richmond grew up reading comic books, playing card games and listening to music—all three activities afforded him the opportunity to explore. Sometimes, he’d discover that there was more to explore—like more comic books, television shows, movies, etc.—and the excitement he felt over exploring an even wider imagined world, he says, was unmatched.

A few years ago, Richmond decided to create a fantasy world of his own. He began with a card game, one that had its own mythology, and in order to figure out what that world might feel like, Richmond—a professional musician who’s played in a number of local bands (including Super- unknown) and owns Bay 1 Studios—turned to music.

Song ideas became narrative elements to a wider story for the card game and allowed Richmond to work through relationships happening in the story. He put together a band of seasoned local musicians to help him navigate further—Brianna “Bri” Litman on lead vocals, Cory Teitelbaum on lead guitar, Jamie Booth on drums and Bruce Stocking on bass. Together, they make up the hard rock band The Vailix, making the music that orbits the story told through Richmond’s card game, The Forevergone, and comic book series, The Tales of the Cloud Ocean.

The story is this: After a catastrophe, planet Atla is covered in a toxic fog and survivors take to the skies, living in towers high above the fog and traveling via airship. A young woman, who is estranged from her father, has an overprotective mother. But because of where the young woman comes from, because of who she is, she wants more from her life than what’s been laid out for her—she wants to own her own destiny. In order to do so, she needs allies and she needs a ship. The ship is called The Vailix, and it comes equipped with a crew…the band members.

The card game and one set of songs—the Aeronaut EP—were released in 2016, and this week, The Vailix will release its second EP, Architect, at The Ante Room. The first book in the comic series comes out this fall. All of the parts work together, but you don’t need to know the comic book or the card game to understand the songs, and vice versa. Each piece is “interlocking, but not integral to the others,” says Richmond, and the themes are universal.

Where Aeronaut explored the question “How do we fit into our own story?,” the Architect EP is about confronting and embracing destiny and learning to deal with the consequences of what follows—narratively, it fits with the comic book, but it’s a story in itself.

Richmond writes most of the songs, but it’s up to the rest of the band to breathe life into them. “We’re here to make what’s in Rob’s head come out of big speakers in a club,” says Teitelbaum.

It’s an unusual thing for Charlottesville (or anyplace, for that matter), but it’s perfect for the con crowd—The Vailix will be the musical guest of honor at RavenCon in April in Williamsburg, where they hope to reach a larger fan base.

This is more than just a card game, comic books and songs, says Richmond. “Our fans are part of the crew. The crew serves the ship. The ship is The Vailix. The band serves the fans…the fans are The Vailix.”

Pokemon Sun and Moon News: TCG Burning Shadows Cards Expansion Revealed

Pokemon is still as popular as ever - the launch of Pokemon Go last year proved that the media sensation never truly died, and has been wedged firmly in public consciousness since it arrived over 20 years ago.

Pokemon Go was downloaded over 500 million times and the most recent games (Sun and Moon) tallied sales of up to 15 million, Pokemon's empire is clearly still in full swing... and Pokemon cards are no exception.

As electronic card games increase in popularity (Hearthstone leads a $1.2 billion market!), Pokemon still dominates the physical card space - maintaining its popularity alongside Pokemon games, anime, apps and merch.

The Pokemon Card Game (referred to lovingly as Pokemon TCG by fans) use all the mechanics you'll know from the games: you can evolve Pokemon, you can swap out Pokemon from the battle to the bench, there are recognisable Trainers you can play to help you in battle, and there are items you can use to help you recover damage, do more damage or even outright remove Pokemon from battle.

The game - despite looking pretty intimidating if you're new to it - is surprisingly simple to learn, and there are even dedicated starter kits designed to ease new players into the game.

Equally, game mechanics haven't changed all that much since it was introduced over two decades ago: there's still a focus on one-on-one battling, there's still an incentive to build themed decks, and there are still almost infinite variations of mechanics, cards and gimmicks to use to get one up on your opponents.

You can also play with all the cards you can collect in real life in Pokemon TCG Online - which is available on iOS, Android and on PC/Mac.

Unlike the video games - which typically release once per year - the Pokemon TCG (Trading Card Game) tends to get updated multiple times per annum, meaning there's always something new to learn, new mechanics to get your head around, and new ways to bring your favourite monsters back into the action.

The latest set of which is Pokemon Sun and Moon: Burning Shadows and you can find out more on that expansion, just below.

BURNING SHADOWS EXPANSION

The new Pokemon TCG Sun and Moon - Burning Shadows expansion includes the following:

• Over 140 cards
• 12 new Pokémon-GX
• 6 new full-art Supporter cards featuring important human characters

Minions of Team Skull and a cavalcade of new Pokémon stand ready to battle in the Pokémon TCG: Sun and Moon Burning Shadows expansion.

Slug it out with new titans like Necrozma-GX and Tapu Fini-GX, or battle with trusty allies from Machamp-GX and Charizard-GX to Darkrai-GX and Ho-Oh-GX.

This expansion also includes two new theme decks, with each one contains everything a player needs to start battling right away. The two decks are Rock Steady and Luminous Frost, details of which can be found underneath.

Rock Steady

Steady nerves and a sharp punch: Lycanroc is ready to stand and fight! This hardworking deck puts both Fighting- and Psychic-type Pokémon at your fingertips—for strength of body and mind.

The deck includes: 60 Pokémon card deck, 1 card checklist, 1 metallic coin, 2-player playmat and rulesheet, 1 code card to play this deck online and 1 deck box

Luminous Frost

Alolan Ninetales is keeping it frosty—and its friends are super-hot! Opposites attract when you fuse Fire and Water types, offering two paths to victory.

The deck includes: 60 Pokémon card deck, 1 card checklist, 1 metallic coin, 2-player playmat and rulesheet, 1 code card to play this deck online and 1 deck box.

Some Of The Most Ridiculously Random Cards In Collectible Card Games

There are a lot of collectible card games coming out lately. Magic is still going strong, Hearthstone is huge, Bethesda brought out Legends, Gwent is lots of fun, and more (DOTA 2!) are on the way. But many of these games seem intent on mimicking Hearthstone's spectacle-targetting randomness. Let's poke fun at a few of the more ridiculous cards.

I don't begrudge any Hearthstone players their fun. They know what they're getting into, they play anyway, and that's fine. But I'm a little disappointed that more games haven't chosen randomness as a point of differentiation, thereby giving us an option for a less random game instead of just copying the genre leader. Even Gwent, as different as it is, isn't something I'd ever play competitively because of potentially game-deciding die rolls.

One I've been meaning to check out when I have the time is Codex, which comes from the creator of the upcoming Fantasy Strike.

Ah, Unstable Portal. An oldy but a goodie. Ol' faithful. This one has been banging around in casino mage decks for a long, long time. Not a huge play, but a consistent one. It could've been a much more palatable card if it only dealt with creatures in your deck — effectively making it a sacrifice of planning in exchange for a reduced mana cost. But nope, they just had to make it out of a pool of every minion in the game. The same thing goes for Nexus-Champion Saraad, which gives you a random spell (out of all the spells) every time you cast your heroic ability.

And then Sneed's Old Shredder is there to summon a random legendary minion when it dies. I actually like that they limit it to legendary, but still — the result of that die roll could decide the game, which is not okay.

But that's nothing compared to...

Ah, Yogg-Saron, Hope’s End, the bane of people who like to pretend Hearthstone is an esport. Because nothing says "tournament ready" more than using the word "random" two times in your card description. This one has already caused controversies in high-profile Hearthstone tournaments, and it is absolutely possible to throw a Hail Mary with Yogg-Saron from a losing position to come out with a win.

Pure filth.

I don't even feel bad for making fun of Hearthstone, as its developers have repeatedly said Blizzard targetted randomness for a more exciting spectator experience. But other games have been following suit. Enter Legends...

Wabbajack is about as nuts as it gets in Legends. Theoretically, you'd be whacking either a low power friendly minion or a high power enemy minion with this, and statistically you're more likely to end up with a minion that's towards the middle of the bell curve. But practically, with all the keywords and special abilities in play, this can be a game-deciding moment.

Wisdom of Ancients is probable my least favourite kind of randomness in Legends. There are several cards with this function. Royal Sage, Mundus Stone, Echo of Akatosh, to name a few more. With a full board, this reaches almost Yogg-Saron levels of "I don't know what's going to happen, but it's going to be big".

Heroic Rebirth is not too dissimilar from an Unstable Portal, though you have to give up one of your creatures. I'm also not much of a fan of cards like Flesh Sculpture or Blackmail, which is based on card draw randomness, but there's very little planning or strategy in the use of the card.

Not even Gwent is pure of RNG madness, and while the Monsters deck is the worst offender (randomness is part of its core system), it’s actually a neutral card that comes out on top.

Johnny is legitimately about as nuts as it gets in Gwent, which is... Not very nuts. I don't like it, but most of the other random cards in the game are at least based around strategies that use that card. They're meant to be used in a very specific way, with known odds, making it a bit more like Poker to contrast Hearthstone's 52 Card Pickup.

I’ll say this about Gwent, too. It has a lot of random shenanigans in its Monsters deck, which even has randomness built into its special trait... But at least players can't follow up on a random move with a cheesy one-two punch. After every move in Gwent, the opponent gets a chance to respond, which by nature makes the randomness a little bit more manageable.

Cards like Johnny are definitely on the wrong side of the line for me still, and I'm a bit disappointed in the level of randomness Gwent has. It can change the outcome of the game, and I groan every time a Monsters casino decks rolls up. But at least I get a chance to respond whenever something crazy happens.

There's also a lot more segmentation in Gwent's randomness. Often random cards will be selected out of a pool such as the same rarity, or the same monster type, or the same power. Not only does that limit the craziness, it also allows you to manage that randomness and target it, such as with spider decks and cards that summon random spiders.

Did I leave any out? Which random-ass card grinds your gears? Are there any CCGs I didn't mention that eschew randomness? Let everyone know in the comments below!

The 3 Best Card Games For Mobile

In this chunk of our round-up of the best board games on mobile, we're going to have a quick look at a pretty broad category – namely, card games.

There are loads of card games available on mobile, so figuring out which is the one for you can be a bit daunting. But trust us when we say that there's very little chance of you going wrong if you pick from one of these.

Hearthstone

The big boss of digital card games. This one isn't an adaptation, it's been built from the ground-up for playing on PC or mobile. And if you like your CCGs deep and dripping with lore, then you're going to love it.

Set in Blizzard's Warcraft universe, the game sees you building up a deck of cards in order to take on foes in multiplayer battles. It's always getting updated, and it's probably the most popular digital card game out there.

You're going to lose a lot of your time to it if it manages to sink its claws into you, and there's a very good chance that it will.

Pokemon TCG

Another trading card game, but this time it's got a Pokemon twist. And that makes it special, because we all know that games with Pokemon in them are better than games without Pokemon in them.

But this isn't just a half-arsed port. This is a brilliant adaptation in its own right that really captures the buzz of the physical orignal.

If you're looking for a card game that isn't all wizards and spells, then this is definitely the one that you should be checking out. Plus, y'know, Pokemon.

Card Thief

A bit of a departure from the others, as there's no deck-building here. Instead you're trying to steal a bunch of loot from a dungeon.

And that dungeon is represented by a deck of cards that you're turning over. You're sneaking through the shadows, extinguishing torches, and trying to get out before anyone even suspects that you've nabbed their stuff.

Both Card Crawl and Miracle Merchant from the same dev are worth checking out too, but this is probably the best place to start your card-laying career.