In early November, the legal counsel for Lawrence DiCristina, a man charged with violating the Illegal Gambling Business Act after allegedly operating a two-table home poker game, filed a petition for the US Supreme Court to hear their client’s case. Their wish could soon be granted. On Friday, the Supreme Court will examine the case and announce on Monday whether the nation’s highest judicial body will hear it.

“It’s the first serious challenge to Federal gaming laws,” Poker Players Alliance Executive Director John Pappas told PocketFives in an exclusive interview. “It would be a way for the courts to once and for all clarify what’s accepted under Federal law. Any time you have courts dissenting on an opinion, the Supreme Court likes to come in and clarify it. As it stands now, the Supreme Court could accept it because it’s ripe to address Federal gaming laws.”

Could a hearing by the US Supreme Court help or hurt poker in the United States? “This would be limited to the application if IGBA – whether or not an activity can be deemed legal or illegal if it’s skill or chance,” Pappas said of the hearing’s ramifications. “It simply would state that people operating games of skill wouldn’t be prosecuted under IGBA. If the case ends now without a Supreme Court hearing, the legal standard would essentially state that skill versus chance doesn’t matter. We want to say that skill versus chance does matter and that the game of poker should be treated differently.”

In August, an Appellate Court reversed a lower court ruling and said that even though skill might have been a factor, DiCristina still violated the law. In 2012 came the original ruling that DiCristina wasn’t violating IGBA because poker is a game of skill and, therefore, not gambling.

The PPA has been helping DiCristina by providing “legal support through our attorneys and through our filings. We’re helping educate the attorneys he is using about gaming law and skill versus chance. We have also filed amicus briefs in support of his Supreme Court bid and at other judicial levels,” Pappas pointed out.

What’s the likelihood that the highest court in the US takes the case? We’ll know come Monday, but in the meantime, Pappas speculated, “We are hopefully optimistic, but recognize that the Court may not view this as ripe for discussion. They may not believe there’s sufficient dissension among the courts. We have an Appeals Court and a Circuit Court that have disagreed. Generally, the Supreme Court likes to see disagreements among Circuit Courts. There isn’t a disagreement among Circuit Courts here, so it’s a little harder.”

DiCristina’s legal team argued that a Supreme Court review is needed because of a conflict between state and Federal laws as well as interpretations of “including but not limited to” clauses in Federal regulations, according to PocketFives’ own Earl Burton.

We’ll keep you posted on this still developing story right here on PocketFives.

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