Poker Requires Skill

Published: Tuesday, January 27, 2009 Online-Casinos.com

Reasonable people believe that poker is in fact different than games such as roulette and craps. The online poker playing patron is certainly aware of this fact.

During a recent trial in Colorado, a man, determined to prove this idea, was found not guilty on charges of professional gambling. The jury stated the prosecution failed to prove poker was not a game of skill, giving ammunition to poker players who want to see state and even federal laws changed to declare poker a game of skill and not chance.

Kevin Raley of Windsor wanted to do his part in building cases of positive verdicts for poker and poker players. "The poker players have to work together as a group on this," Raley said.

During his defence one testimony was given by Robert Hannum, professor of statistics from the University of Denver. He's the author of "Practical Casino Math" who has done a great deal of research on gaming modeling and applications. Hannum once ran a billion hands in a simulation with two players in a heads-up match. He programmed one player to play his cards randomly, and the other to raise with a certain number of select hands. The player selecting his hands and raising with them won 97 percent of the hands. Giving the jury a reason to see poker as a skillful pass time.

Gary Reed, director for the Colorado chapter of the Poker Players Alliance said this will help the cause of the alliance if decisions like this one keep coming down. Last week, a Pennsylvania judge also ruled that poker was a game of skill, freeing a man who ran a small no-limit hold 'em game.

The Colorado chapter would like to see the law changed, declaring poker as a game of skill. The alliance wants to see poker defined as a game of skill.This is a change that would offer poker to people the same as fantasy football and games such as solitaire for money.

The declaration that poker requires skill comes as no surprise to those who like to play online poker,it's only a matter of time before reasonable people have it their way.