Poker skills could sway gaming laws

[Eric]

IS POKER a game of skill or luck? For regular players that's a no-
brainer, but showing that skill wins out has proven surprisingly
difficult for mathematicians. Now two studies that tapped the vast
amounts of data available from online casinos have provided some of
the best evidence yet that poker is skill-based. Many hope that the
results will help to roll back laws and court decisions that consider
poker gambling, and therefore illegal in certain contexts.

Most players insist that poker is predominantly skill. "I depended
solely on that skill for my food and rent," says Darse Billings, a
former professional player who co-founded the Computer Poker Research
Group at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. In many
jurisdictions, however, poker websites and organised games are heavily
regulated or even banned under gambling laws, partly because chance is
considered the dominant factor.

Previous attempts to quantify the relationship between skill and
chance have involved building theoretical models or playing software
bots against each other. However, Ingo Fiedler and Jan-Philipp Rock at
the University of Hamburg's Institute of Law and Economics in Germany
argue that these methods fail to reflect real games, and this may
explain why some courts and lawmakers have yet to be swayed by them.
So over three months, the pair recorded the outcomes of 55,000 online
players playing millions of hands of poker's most popular variant, "no-
limit Texas hold 'em".

They reasoned that if skill dominated, this would eventually show
itself over many hands, so they chose two factors to define this
threshold. Firstly, they measured how much each player's winnings and
losses fluctuated: the higher this variance, the greater the role of
chance. Secondly, they measured the average value of a player's
winnings or losses: highly skilled or terrible players would do
noticeably better or worse than would be expected by chance alone.

Based on these factors, they found that the threshold at which the
effects of skill start to dominate over chance is typically about 1000
hands, equivalent to about 33 hours of playing in person or 13 hours
online, where the rate of play is brisker. So although chance plays a
role, they suggest that because most players easily play this many
hands in a lifetime, poker is more a game of skill ( Gaming Law Review
and Economics , DOI: 10.1089/glre.2008.13106). "Our results should
have greater impact on the legislators than the results of other
studies; they refer to reality," says Fiedler.

However, Sean McCulloch, a computer scientist at Ohio Wesleyan
University in Delaware, says the results may fail to sway a judge or
jury. "If you want to use a mathematical argument as the basis for
legislation or court decisions, it has to be easy to explain, easy to
follow and intuitive," he says.

McCulloch used an alternative method to explore skill and chance in
poker, also based on real games. Together with Paco Hope of the
software consultancy Cigital of Washington DC, he looked at 103
million hands of Texas hold 'em played at the PokerStars online site
and calculated how many were won as the result of a "showdown" - in
which players win thanks to their cards beating their opponents' cards
- versus those that were won because all the other players folded.
They argue that the latter hands must be pure skill, because no one
shows their cards. Their analysis, released on 27 March, revealed that
76 per cent of games did not end in a showdown, suggesting that skill
is the dominant factor.

John Pappas of the Poker Players Alliance (PPA) in Washington DC says
both studies are badly needed to help properly define the law. In many
US states, judges and juries use a so-called "predominance test" to
gauge skill and chance, based on the opinions of expert witnesses.
Although courts in Pennsylvania, Colorado and South Carolina have all
ruled this year that poker is a game of skill, not all courts do. "It
would not be wise for any of us to rest on our laurels," Pappas says.
The PPA expects the Cigital study will now be used as evidence to
fight appeals against court rulings that decided poker is a skill
game.

However, Preston Oade of law firm Holme Roberts and Owen in Denver,
Colorado, who worked on a separate poker case in Colorado, cautions
that the studies still may not persuade juries, as this is a "moral,
political and social issue", as well as a mathematical one.

Pappas hopes the studies will help to persuade the US Congress to
grant poker an exemption from the Unlawful Internet Gambling
Enforcement Act, due to come into force in December 2009. The act will
make it illegal in some states for banks to process transactions from
gambling websites.

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I thought it was inarguably self-evident that Poker, like most games,
requires skill to make the best of the element of chance inherent in
the game.

Why is this relevant to whether or not Poker is regulated under
gambling legislation?

You would have to gamble a lot to gain the skill so logically its got
to remain gambling in law until you've played 1000 hands - which
according to the law you wont have legally played for money so that
wouldnt count either...

Play Texas Holdem at PokerStars http://pokermilk.com/5