The State of Texas on Thursday officially took the first step towards legalizing poker.

According to media reports, a bill that would legalize the game was approved by the Texas State House of Representatives committee that oversees gambling issues, the Licensing and Administrative Procedures Committee, by a vote of 6 to 3.

It was the first step of a multi-step process required for legal poker in the Lone Star State.

Next, the bill must be approved by the entire Texas State House of Representatives.

Then the Texas State Senate must approve it.

Then the Governor of Texas must sign it into law.

If the bill does become law, it would not just legalize all forms of poker, it would define the scope of lawful poker in Texas.

The bill doesn’t blanketly make poker legal in every part of Texas.

Instead, it allows each local municipality in the state to decide for itself whether it wants to allow poker.

Municipalities that want it can decide where it will be allowed and during what hours.

Municipalities that don’t want it, don’t have to have it, meaning it’s quite possible, for example, that poker could be legal in Dallas but not in nearby Fort Worth.

Currently, playing poker is allowed in private homes in Texas, as long as the players aren’t charged a fee to play and the house doesn’t take a cut (the “rake”) from the pots.

If the poker bill becomes law, municipalities will be allowed to open public poker rooms where rakes or pay-to-play fees will be permitted.

The poker rooms would be licensed and taxed by the state.

Mike Lavigne, director of the Texas branch of the Poker Players Alliance, which lobbies for legal poker, told the Dallas Morning News he thinks that, “The vast majority of communities in Texas will hold successful elections allowing Texas hold ‘em at specific locations. This is a smart way to allow local control over what will quickly become an economic development issue.”

It was not immediately made clear how municipalities in the state would decide whether to have poker.

But it will likely be decided by local governing boards, such as a City Council, rather than a local “election” as Lavigne predicted.

(E-mail Tom Somach at tomsomach@yahoo.com.)