Although getting new legislation is the number one priority of the PPA and the poker community, new legislation takes time. Until we reach that goal there is another avenue for establishiing poker as a legal game: proving in court that poker results are mostly due to skill. Only a handful of states have laws that specifically mention the game of poker. Most (about 35 and the Federal government) do not mention poker at all. Instead they simply say "gambling' is illegal. The legal defintion of gambling in most states basically says if the results of the game are mostly due to chance, its gambling and illegal; if the results of the game are mostly due to skill, its not gambling and perfectly legal. So how does one prove that poker is mostly skill ?

A while back I came up with a formal legal proof which I will post below. Howard Lederer (yes him) took my basic proof and and imporved it significantly in an article you can find here: http://gpsts.org/poker-a-game-of-skill/ (its the second article). There is still some work to be done to get the argument ready for court (statistics mostly), but I present it here to get your feedback and also to let you know that voting isnt the only way that we can establish unquestioned legality for our favorite game.

The basic proof: The question (to conform to the legal test): Is the �outcome� of poker predominantly due to chance or skill? Since poker is clearly a game of multiple hands (like baseball is multiple at bats), and since any given hand can obviously be the result of either skill (I bluffed, he folded) or chance (the cards gave me the best hand), the question becomes which, skill or chance, is responsible for most �outcomes� in poker?

First lets defeine our terms:: Skill = decisions made by players; Chance (or luck) = the distribution of the cards; Outcome = winning the hand, and by how much.

Now consider a fair representative number of poker hands at any table, and remember, showing chance means the outcome is DETERMINED by the cards. So, first, every hand that does not go to showdown was undeniably the result of player actions, not the cards (there is no rule that says you HAVE to fold 2-7 or call/raise with A-A). In most forms of poker this is the way most hands are resolved (all but one person folds before all the cards are revealed). Preliminary statistical studies put this number at a little over 60% of all hands of holdem. That means at least 60% of hands must fall in the skill category!

But there is more. Second, when hands do go to showdown, who is at the showdown is detemined by player decisions (to call, fold or raise), not the cards. And quite often the person who would have had the best hand has folded long before all the cards are shown

Third, even at the showdown the more skilled player will be in the advantage (he who has the best pre-river hand is there usually because his skills tell him he has that hand. So the cards ARE NOT determining who goes into a showdown with the hand most likely to win, it is the skill (or lack thereof) of the players

Fourth, even at the showdown, the underdog only wins less than half the time because, of course, thats why he is the underdog!

And finally, the amount of the win (especially significant in tournament poker) has been determined completely by the players (though structured by the betting rules), not the cards

So put all that together, and the only time you can really say that chance DETERMINES the outcome in poker is when there is a showdown and the less skilled player gets lucky and hits his or her improbable card. We all know that happens in poker, we also all know that happens far, far less than half the time Therefore Poker results are determined far more often by the players than by the cards. And thus Poker is a game of Skill.

This is even more apparent when you factor in that poker is really a game of winning chips, not hands. Since the amount of win or loss on any hand is totally within the players control, that element of poker must also be deemed a skill element. An aspect of this argument assumes Courts are going to consider the word �outcome� as meaning winning or losing. Yet in poker �winning� is defined by most players as �winning money� not winning hands. If a Court is convinced to also include the amount of a win, then a court must also include the amount of a loss, as losing less and winning more than someone else would in the same game/hand is a key aspect of being a successful poker player. This aspect, while not immediately quantifiable, is clearly a result of skill, however, as the game itself does not decide how much any one or more player (other than by blinds or antes) will risk or win on any hand

So, in a nutshell, 1) all hands not shown down are skill outcomes, 2) of hands shown down some were won by skill, and 3) some amount of the win was also the result of skill. THUS, MOST OF POKER �OUTCOMES� MUST BE SKILL.

Agree? Disagree? Comments or suggstions? Please post.

Skallagrim

Edited 12/7/02 - I have finally figured out how to format parargraphs and such on this forum, I hope all readers find the above much more user friendly now. And I thank TheEngineer for his formated post below of the shorter version.

Good to see ya here Skall! I would definately recommend readers take a look at Howard's write-up, as IMO it provides a very thorough argument/proof. But your overview above is a great starter.

It would be very interesting to do statistical analysis on a database of billions of hands like stars and Tilt have. I wonder how hands like cold decks (AA vs. KK) and coin flips (AK vs. QQ) skew the results towards chance, as these types of hands generally have the biggest pots. Do we have any way of knowing whether a judge would focus more on # hands won vs. # of chips won when making a skill vs. luck decision?

I am deleting this post as all it referred to was my formatting difficulties in the original, which I have now fixed.

Skallagrim

Good to see you here too Whangarei. You asked:

"It would be very interesting to do statistical analysis on a databaseof billions of hands like stars and Tilt have. I wonder how hands likecold decks (AA vs. KK) and coin flips (AK vs. QQ) skew the resultstowards chance, as these types of hands generally have the biggestpots. Do we have any way of knowing whether a judge would focus more on# hands won vs. # of chips won when making a skill vs. luck decision?"

The CEO for True Poker did an analysis of arouund 600,000 holdem and omaha hands at his site and reported that about 62% ended before the final card was shown. Almost 2/3rds of the hands were decided by the players, not the cards!

I still hope to get (through the PPA) some stats from sites like FTP and Stars, but were not there yet.

And I am not sure its possible to figure in the money won or lost, I hope a statistician will help with that part of the proof someday.

And while, to a certain extent I conceed all in hands like AA v. KK to the chance category, they (thankfully) dont occur that often even though you are right they often result in the greatest transfer of chips.

Yeah - PARAGRAPHS! I guess it is very important to check the HTML box above the post box before submitting.

Skallagrim