Criminal Justice
Is Poker a Game of Skill that is Legal? S.C. Judge Will Decide
Posted Jan 29, 2009 9:15 AM CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss
Five college buddies nabbed in a poker bust are asking a South Carolina judge to decide whether Texas Hold 'em is an illegal game of chance or a permissible game of skill.
A South Carolina law bans ''any game with cards or dice'' but state Attorney General Henry McMaster says his office interprets the statute to ban games that rely more on chance than skill, the Associated Press reports. And for years, the office has viewed Texas Hold ’em as an illegal game of chance.
Thirty-eight other states have laws that also bar games of chance, according to Colorado lawyer Chuck Humphrey. Some poker players are beginning to claim—with some success—that the laws don’t apply to them.
A Pennsylvania judge ruled Texas Hold ’em is a game of skill and acquitted a man who held poker games in his garage, according to CardPlayer.com. And a Colorado jury acquitted the organizer of a poker league after a University of Denver statistics professor testified poker is a game of skill, according to a press release by the Poker Players Alliance.
The alliance, based in Washington, D.C., relies on a national network of lawyers to serve as a legal brain trust, according to the AP story.
The South Carolina judge, Lawrence Duffy Jr., is scheduled to rule on Feb. 13, according to CardPlayer.com. Defense costs are being financed by a benefactor who wants to remain anonymous, according to one of the defendants, Bob Chimento.
- How B of A’s GC Got Fired: Leave Now, and Leave Your BlackBerry Behind
- Schools Ranked by 'Super Lawyers' Produced
- Law Firm Price Wars Break Out as Some Try ‘Loss Leader’ Bids for Work
- Five Questions for Law Firms Abandoning Lockstep Compensation
- Judge Jails 2 Attorneys for Contempt in 4 Days
- Court Deputy Ordered to Apologize or Face Jail After Taking Lawyer's Paperwork
- Skadden Jumps on the Bonus Bandwagon
- ABA Executive Director Resigns
- Nasty Attitude to Co-Worker, Naughty Word in Web Comment Cost 2 Their Jobs
- NU Law Dean Adjusts 'Super Lawyers' Rankings to Reflect Law School Size
Should Supreme Court Justices Be Able to Review News Accounts Before Publication?
Comments
Emily
Jan 30, 2009 7:52 AM CST
If hold ‘em was a game of luck, why would you see the same faces year after year at the final table of the World Series of Poker?
Jason
Jan 30, 2009 8:48 AM CST
It’s both. If you sit at the table picking your nose and praying for a straight flush, then it’s a game of chance. If you actually play, it’s skill (or lack thereof).
Or, looked at another way, the cards themselves are chance; knowing what to do with them is skill.
Poker Guy
Jan 30, 2009 8:48 AM CST
Its a game of skill and luck. You may use your skill to figure out that you are at 75% to win the hand, but the other guy may get lucky and draw out on you.
BTW Emily, the same faces almost never make it to the final tabel. The only reason you see some of the same faces is because they play in every tournament and get a lot of camera time.
Travis
Jan 30, 2009 9:32 AM CST
There is practically a casino in every next town in many states nowadays. Yet they are prosecuting 5 college buddies for playing poker?
Lowell
Jan 30, 2009 9:44 AM CST
Emily is right, if it were luck then you would not have seen Johnny Chan win the World Series of Poker two years in a row.
SCGuy
Jan 30, 2009 10:16 AM CST
The problem is the statute which applies to anything with cards or dice. So even Monopoly is illegal here, technically. Of course, we do have bingo, and the lottery, which both require lots and lots of skill.
everett
Jan 30, 2009 10:38 AM CST
I gave up on-line poker several years ago because of the questionable legality. A definitive ruling would be nice, but would only apply to live games in South Carolina. I do not know whether anyone has ever been prosecuted for playing poker on the internet. Is anyone familiar with an ongoing or recently decided case?
Swami John
Jan 30, 2009 10:45 AM CST
There is a multi-million dollar industry that exists purely to teach the game of poker. Books, videos, private instruction, websites and more all dedicated to teaching one how to play the game better than someone else. Some are basic in the “how to Play” instuction, but most take the game to multiple levels of thought and skill; reading body language, playing table position, developing a “table image” and much more. There is a huge luck factor that allows someone with none of the above skills to occasionally win, but the long term odds of masterful poker play has been proven to overcome any such luck.
JFK
Jan 30, 2009 10:52 AM CST
If it were purely skill, Jamie Gold would never have won the main event.
Swami John
Jan 30, 2009 10:54 AM CST
To my knowledge, Only the operators of on-line gambling sites have been prosecuted so far. On-line poker is illegal in most of the United States because the of the random number generators it takes to operate most of these sites. These random number generators are not truly random, as no mathematical equation with the known value of all the cards in play can truly be random. There is hope; RealDealPoker and gioiasystems are two websites that have solved this problem and are most likely to help legalize a fair and trusted game of poker on-line.
John
Jan 30, 2009 11:27 AM CST
The $10K I have made this calendar year, $25K that I made last year (due to games slowing b/c of the busts) and the $77K I made the year before tells me it is not a game of luck or I am extremely lucky…these are real numbers, I track very closely…
scott dahl
Jan 30, 2009 3:45 PM CST
both luck and skill.
over the long haul skill will prevail
JFK
Jan 30, 2009 3:57 PM CST
It’s luck to the extent the outcome of every hand is probabalistic. Skill enables you to manipulate the odds. Skill wins in the long haul because of the strong law of large numbers.
Poker is skill and luck, just like law
Feb 1, 2009 6:12 PM CST
Nearly everything we do in life has a component of luck and skill to it. Being a lawyer, you might think you make your living because of your skill, your good outcomes for clients bring you more referrals. But what about the clients who come your way purely because of dumb luck? The phone book fell open to the ad with your page, and you got a lucrative new client. And in every jury case I try, there’s a large element of luck going into who is in the pool. Does that mean being a lawyer should be illegal?
W Thomas
Feb 2, 2009 9:37 AM CST
Baccarat is a card game of luck. Blackjack has player involvement, so there is a degree of skill.
However, in Poker it is absolutely possible for the player with the best cards to lose because of folding. Bluffing is a major part of Poker and it is 100% skill.
Add a Comment
We welcome your comments, but please adhere to our comment policy.
Commenting has expired on this post.