Poker is Skill

Scientists Tell Courts Poker is Skill, Not Luck

* By Edward Fredericks

* Published Yesterday

* Legal Poker News

* Rating: Unrated

Scientific Studies Are Cool

Scientific Studies Are Cool The evidence has been mounting in cases around the world that poker does not fit into most definitions of illegal gambling because the game's predominant element is skill. Now, two separate, detailed analyses have confirmed this conclusion, possibly helping poker to legally distinguish itself from other forms gambling.

A study by two mathematicians at the University of Hamburg's Institute of Law and Economics took the results of millions of hands of Texas Hold 'em and found that skill begins to dominate over chance at one thousand hands. Further, while chance played a part in results, better players ended up with results several deviations better than chance would afford, while bad players finished far worse than simple randomness could explain.

A second study, by online security group Cigital, in conjunction with a computer science professor from Ohio Wesleyan University, used the results of 103 million hands played last winter at PokerStars online poker room to also discover that skill was by far the dominant factor in no limit Hold 'em.

In fact, the Cigital survey showed that only in about one hand in eight did a showdown occur with the best hand of the players at start of the hand winning. Fully half of all showdowns were won by hands that could have been defeated if all players had simply played out the hand.

If only twelve percent of hands are decided by who randomly received the best cards, the study argues, then eighty-eight percent are won by players using betting and predicting skills to determine winners.

The Poker Players Alliance has hailed the research, and expects to use the information to defend court decisions concluding poker is skill, in Colorado, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina. Lawmakers will also be hard-pressed to include poker in any future anti-gambling legislation, with such compelling evidence that poker is a different game entirely than casino gambling.