N.C. Court Rules Poker Is a Game of ChanceCourt Quashed Attempts of Man to Open Poker Club There |
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The North Carolina Court of Appeals yesterday ruled that poker is a game of luck and not one of skill.
The court ruled in a case that was appealed to it by Howard Fierman, who wanted to open up a poker club called the Joker Club in Durham County in 2004.
When the attorney general of Durham County, Jim Hardin, told Fierman that that the club would be illegal, Fierman sued the county on the grounds that poker is a game of skill and should not be considered a gambling game.
The case was first heard in county Superior Court July 1, 2005 and the Appellate Court Aug. 23, 2006. The ruling was just made yesterday (May 1).
All three Appellate judges ruled that poker is a game of chance, despite hearing testimony from four witnesses for the plaintiff, and only one, an officer for the North Carolina Alcohol Law Enforcement Division named Richard Thornell, for the Attorney General. The witnesses for the plaintiff included Card Player contributor and poker instructor Roy Cooke.
Cooke testified that although on any single hand of poker, chance may defeat skill, over the long run, skill will ultimately beat luck. He also testified that there are certain mathematical strategies players can learn to use to improve their game.
The court chose to believe Thornell, who testified that he's played poker for nearly 40 years. He told the court that although he feels there's skill in poker, luck ultimately prevails. He specifically noted a hand that he watched on television that had a 91 percent chance to win lose to a hand than only had a 9 percent chance to win.
In effect, the court ruled that chance dominates skill in poker, and therefore, the state will consider it a game of chance the way state law is written.
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