So without any thought, I am going to write the first thing that comes into my mind about a Hive Poker game without smart contracts.

Make a web page that lets up to 6 people play a hand of poker, maybe Texas Hold 'Em. There is a lobby and if there are more than 6 people in it, then there could be several 6 player hands happening at the same time.

The hand is about to start. Players send X amount of HBD ante to the Hive account@poker-dealer account (which doesn't exist but I should make it real fast!). Everyone pays the same X amount, and there can be different leagues or something where X varies. Maybe some have X of 0.001 and others where X is 1 or whatever.

Random cards are dealt according to the standard game rules, People bet according to standard rules, maybe with a bet cap based on an ante multiplier. At the end, someone wins and Hive account@poker-dealer sends them their winnings, maybe minus a small fee or percentage for further dev work and/or a game token.

The players will see whether the bot owned by Hive account@poker-dealer acting as dealer is fair or not. Since it Will be fair, they will have no problem sending their ante and bets to the bot account.

I'll think about it more, but seems like this might work.