SARASOTA - For people who know "gutshot" and "rake" can refer to more than a bullet wound or gardening tool, there's good news. The Sarasota Kennel Club, hoping to improve its hand, so to speak, opened the area's only poker room on Friday, One-Eyed Jacks.

A line of players stretched out the double doors leading into the 6,000-square-foot room, where chips clatter and cocktail waitresses swarm amid 24 tables offering seven styles of poker, from 7-Card-Stud Hi-Lo to the kind of Texas Hold 'Em tournaments sensationalized on cable television.

Unlike the concrete and steel bleachers overlooking the track outside, the poker room exudes the faux-glitzy feel of Las Vegas, with its plush carpeting, marbletop bar and tuxedo-clad dealers and cocktail waitresses.

"You're in the ghetto, walking into the Bellagio," said Scott Gardner as he stood outside smoking a cigarette during a break in the $45-buy-in Texas Hold 'Em tournament whose first prize topped $1,500.
Owner's 3-Year Battle Over

For Jack Collins Jr., whose grandfather bought the 77-year-old dog track for $5,000 on the courthouse steps in 1944, Friday marked the victorious end of a nearly three-year battle to offer poker, as 11 of Florida's 18 greyhound tracks already do to make up for their aging, dwindling customer base.

"You need to have something for the younger generations," Collins said. Collins convinced the Sarasota County Commission to reverse its previous, unanimous rejection of his card room plans in late April with the help of hundreds of supporters who deluged commissioners with supportive e-mails. Collins refined his pitch with the assurance that "this isn't $1,000-a-hand Las Vegas gambling," as commissioner Nora Patterson described it at the time.

One-Eyed Jacks, Collins hopes, will boost a flagging business. Track owners generally blame the 1988 debut of the Florida Lottery for stealing away the recreational gamblers who made up the bulk of dog track business.

"They could be here for four hours with a $20 bill," he said of the old days.