Poker and the Law: Is It a Game of Skill or Chance and Legally Does It Matter?

THE PARAMETERS OF LEGAL POKER PLAYING are still unclear. On Nov. 2, 2005, Baltimore police raided the Owl’s Nest, a private club, charged 80 Texas Hold ‘Em poker players with illegal gambling, and seized more than $25,000 in cash and more than $16,000 in poker chips. It may have been the largest raid since 1932 during Prohibition. A vice detective opined that the players “could receive a year in jail or a $1,200 fine.”1 Fortunately for the players, the charges were dismissed because the police had used the wrong statute.2 In contrast, California allows local governments to regulate and tax its approximate 94 card rooms.3 The games are essentially parimutuel events, unlike banked games. Parts of the California regulatory process might seem to border on the absurd, e.g., poker operators may only take money out of a pot (“rake the pot”) three times.4 Farther north, a bill introduced in the North Dakota Legislature would have amended that state’s law so that “gambling does not include: (a) lawful contests of skill, including Internet live poker. . . . ”5 But it did not succeed. Whether poker is a game of skill or of chance seems to be an issue left to the judiciary. There are five major cases before various courts, in the United States and beyond its borders, on whether poker is primarily a game of skill, and if so, whether the law prohibits it. Cases are currently pending in North Carolina, London, Northern Ireland, France and South Australia.