PORT ANGELES — George Kain is taking a gamble to attract customers to Mickey’s Sports Bar and Grill.
On Friday, he debuted the Marine Drive establishment’s poker room.
On Sept. 9, he plans to open a newly renovated back room for Blackjack, Texas Shoot-Out, three-card poker and other favorite table games in the new Mickey’s Casino.
Kain anticipates the mini-casino will attract a full house on the weekends, but he’s laid back about what’s in the cards for the business’s future.
“I just want to have a neighborhood card room that people can come down to and have fun in,” the owner said Friday.
“If we’re full, that’s fine. And if we’re not full, that’s fine, too.”
The casino, considered a card room by the state, is the only one of its kind on the North Olympic Peninsula, said Port Orchard-based Washington State Gambling Commission agent Greg Allen.
It’s a non-tribal run, house-banked facility, meaning players play against the house, Vegas-style.
7 Cedars Casino in Blyn, operated by the Jamestown S’Klallam tribe, also offers traditional card games.
But unlike 7 Cedars, Mickey’s cannot offer games of chance such as slots, roulette or keno under state law.
Inside Mickey’s, 536 Marine Drive, what was once a storage room and banquet facility has been renovated into the main card room, equipped with tables for Spanish 21 (similar to Blackjack), two variations of Blackjack, Fortune Pai Gow, three-card poker and Texas Shoot-Out.
In an adjacent green and burgundy-decorated room between the card room and the lounge sit two poker tables, where daily tournaments are held starting at 1 p.m.
Above the tables in both rooms hang 40 surveillance cameras to comply with Gambling Commission rules.
“We have to have the same kind of surveillance that they do at the Mirage or the Bellagio,” Kain said.
