Posted on 01/17/2007 10:37:25 AM PST by meg88
Poker is a game of luck and not skill, court rules Lucy Bannerman
In the end, good fortune had the stronger hand.
A jury decided yesterday that luck, not skill, played the greater part in poker in a landmark ruling on the status of gambling in Britain.
Derek Kelly, the chairman of a private members club in London, lost his fight to make poker exempt from gambling legislation on the grounds that it was a game of skill.
He was found guilty of breaking the 1968 Gaming Act, after hosting two poker games at the Gutshot club, bar and restaurant in Clerkenwell, Central London.
The jury at Snaresbrook Crown Court found him guilty of breaching the Act on December 7, 2004, when a levy was charged on the winnings, and on January 27, 2005, when a fee was charged to take part.
The Act states that a licence is needed to host games of chance such as blackjack and roulette, but not games of skill, such as chess and quiz machines.
The trial was seen as a test of whether poker should fall under the remit.
Kelly, 46, from Greystones, County Wicklow, said that he was very disappointed.
We still will be playing at the Gutshot tonight. We may have to change the way we do it.
A date for sentencing has been set for February 16.
When I first started playing I would occationally take down a big pot all due to luck, but more times then not I would get trapped.
Now that I have become a better player (not pro, but better) I find that I win more pots and take down the small ones that finance my stabs at the bigger ones.
On a hand there is luck, but the game requires skill.
Your father is small time. Richard Nixon used his poker winnings while in the Navy to fund his first campaign for congress!
You can't bluff a video poker machine.
OK then, bowling is gambling, too.
In a league, you pay into a prize pool, use the greatest skill you have, but in the end, you HAVE to be lucky too, in order for the pins to fall.
I gave up bowling for sex years ago. The balls were lighter, and you didn't have to change shoes.
Ya, but in bowling you were atleast guaranteed access to all three holes!
Settle down people, I am not interested in your "outrage".
Those two posts are about the funniest things Ive read all week.
With the ability to count cards on multiple decks, Blackjack also becomes a game of skill.
Don't forget that you always had to clean your balls in bowling and you never knew who was sticking thier fingers in your balls when you were not looking....I also quit because my children were born and I decided a 202 average didn't mean much any more.
Thats a good reason too.
I quit bowling because I was throwing the ball right handed with a left handed step. You glance the ball off your ankle every now and then doing that.
If you look around the table and can't spot the sucker..
You're it...
The bluff aside...
You're assuming the machine is even playing poker. It may be showing you a hand that looks something like, and wins/loses like, poker - but that doesn't mean it's poker.
It may actually be playing bingo. I kid you not: some jurisdictions only allow bingo, so the machine's maker calls in a mathematician to apply topological transformations to bingo which make it look like poker.
Even if it's playing "poker" (not mutant bingo), there's probably other distortions, like shuffling the deck after every hand.
(I worked on 'em for a while.)
But the video poker rules are already stacked against the player to begin with.
Poker is defined as a game of luck or skill according to the whims of governing authorities, and depends on how they can best steal your winnings.
He decided years ago that he wouldn't run for office . . . he just managed other people's campaigns. Just local state house and judicial races.
I don't believe any of his candidates ever lost . . . those poker skills you know.
Duplicate takes out the element of luck, since everybody plays the same hands.
She as Miss Teen Oklahoma, you know.
Recently divorced?
Not necessarily. It depends on the game and its paytable. It is true that few VP games are at or close to 100% payout (over time). Most fall in the mid 90% range. That 5% house edge will take its toll in short order. The other parts of the equation are your skill level and strategy knowledge for a particular game, coupled with whatever benefits you receive for playing.
If you pick the right game with the right paytable, know the strategy cold and can play for long durations with little or no errors, coupled with a good slot club payback percentage for your play, etc... you can stay even or a little ahead in the long run. Anything can happen in the short term. You can lose money in multiple playing sessions on a machine with a good pay table or win big with your first hand on a machine with a lousy paytable.
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