Let the Poker Players Alliance (PPA) and millions of Americans rejoice this day as one New York Judge has done something these people have hoped, dreamed and campaigned for since 2006. Federal Judge Jack B. Weinstein of Brooklyn has declared poker not a game of chance, but a game of skill.
It all began in the dim back room of a moot warehouse on Staten Island, where a group of card players paid around $300 to buy their way into a seat at a proscribed Texas Holdem poker game. An elaborate set-up, this wasn’t just a group of guys smoking cigars and tossing chips to ease the boredom of mundane life. There were waitresses scuttling about, delivering drinks, meals, likely going through several pots of coffee to keep the players alert as the sun rose upon the following morning.
Ostensibly, the poker game did not end as intended; certainly not if the case concluded in front of a NY district judge where the owner of the warehouse, who ran the poker game, was brought up on charges of running an illegal gambling ring. However, the case was eventually thrown out due to the judge’s ruling, because you cannot be chastised for illegal gambling if the game you provide is not, in fact, demarcated as “gambling”.
Gambling is defined as wagering money or material goods on an event where the outcome is based on chance. Even blackjack, although it offers several strategic routes for skilled players, is still deemed a game of chance as the house edge is always in the casino’s favor, no matter how minimal it may be. Texas Holdem has no house edge. And while there is some luck involved regarding the order of the cards dealt, it is more often the player with the most adept knowledge of the game – calculating pot odds, basing bets on expected values, recognizing poker tells while emitting none – these are the players who most often come out ahead.
A meticulous 120-page ruling handed down by Judge Weinstein, which encompassed an entire history of poker in the US, made a polemic argument that concluded, “The most skillful professionals earn the same celestial salaries as professional ballplayers.”
The United States Attorney’s office is currently reviewing the case and may decide to appeal the decision, but has given no indication of whether it will do so or not. Despite the PPA’s consistent push to have poker declared a game of skill, this ruling marks the first time in US history that a federal judge has ever definitively ruled on the game of poker being a game of chance or skill.
The impact of Judge Weinstein’s ruling could be tremendous. It comes at a precarious moment in developmental America, when a multitude of states are struggling to decide whether online poker should be decriminalized or ultimately banned from within their borders. Since President Obama gave individual states the right to determine their own legislation in regards to online poker regulation, the declaration of poker being a game of skill could quite easily become the ultimate factor in the spread of legal online poker all across the United States.