Is Online Poker Subject A Game Subject to Chance? (Philosophy)

[Mendacious]

Let me preface this by saying 2 things:

1) I am not an expert in random number generation, and
2) I think that the Online Gaming Act was intended to include poker.

That said, as I understand it the key phrase which bolsters the opinion that this act applies to Poker is the definition of a bet or wager which paraphrased is "risking something of value on the outcome of a game subject to chance"

I know most people here will agree that in the long term, poker results are determined by skill and not chance.

My question is are the outcomes of online poker REALLY determined by chance?

In otherwords, is the manner in which the cards are dealt REALLY a matter of chance, necessarily? Isn't the answer to this question determined by the mechanism the site uses to generate the suffle? I will grant that the sites strive to create the illusion of chance to the participants, and hopefully they succeed, but the illusion of chance to the participants does not necessarily mean that the cards dealt were "subject to chance" it simply means that they were not known by the participants.

Regardless of the current state of random number generation in online poker (whether they truly incorporate elements of chance) it would seem possible to generate a shuffle which did not incorporate "chance" but still was sufficiently unpredictable to the participants.

Perhaps this is all hair splitting, but then again, sometimes the law splits hairs.

Any comments?

[Vex]

Where do you draw the line? You could in theory create a precise computer simulation of a bingo cage that could predict the results from that cage. If the simulation is accurate enough, this would work, because the physics of the balls tumbling around inside is a solvable math problem. Therefore, you could say that the outcome of the Bingo game is not subject to chance but is rather a function of the starting positions and orientations of all the balls in it, the amount of rotation given to the cage before drawing the ball, and whatever other variables you can quantify.

In the computer world, you can do two things to generate chance: you can use pseudorandom number generation, or you can use a hardware random number generator. Pseudorandom numbers use large other numbers as seeds to produce output that is the result of a fixed function. For example, a hand number might be used as a seed to generate a random sequence for a deck of cards. Good pseudorandom number generators can produce all possible card sequences with equal probability of each out of any arbitrary selection of seed values, and can also be so tough to reverse-engineer that it would take a supercomputer hundreds of years to discover the cipher that translates seed to output.

At least some online sites use hardware random number generators, which sample quantum noise in order to create true randomness. Basically, they measure something that fluctuates in an impossible-to-predict way, like temperature or vibrations, using lots and lots of precistion. Then, you discard the most significant digits and keep the least significant ones -- the ones that vary the most wildly and unpredictably. The output from that then becomes a perfectly arbitrary seed for a pseudorandom number generator, and nobody has any way to know the seed used for any event unless they have a direct tap into the hardware random number generator.

A hardware random number generator is in fact more truly random than a bingo cage, because the hardware device is influenced strongly by quantum fluctuations. Even if quantum effects are not truly random, it is generally believed that we'd never be able to gain enough knowledge about a quantum system to model it accurately -- so it's as random as the universe-as-we-know-it can be!

[blueodum]

On the quantum level, everything is subject to chance!

It would seem possible to generate a shuffle which did not incorporate "chance" but still was sufficiently unpredictable to the participants.

Seriously though, the bolded phrase is what makes poker and other games "subject to chance". After all the game is played by people, not sub-atomic particles.

[maurile]

[ QUOTE ]
My question is are the outcomes of online poker REALLY determined by chance?

[/ QUOTE ]
Yes.

1. Statutes are written and understood in English, not in particle-physics-speak. Games of chance include B&M blackjack, so they'd also include online blackjack with a pseudo-random number generator.

2. Sites (at least the main ones) do not use mere pseudo-random number generators. They use true random number generators that are hooked up to Geiger counters and stuff.

I think there's a reason the statute says "games subject to chance" rather than "games of chance," and the reason is to include poker. Skill may predominate over luck in poker (in the long run), but there will always be an element of luck.

[Performify]

"No fair! You changed the outcome by measuring it!"

[Mendacious]

The statute does not reference what the participants think.

Clearly the determining factor can't be the subjective beliefs of the participants.

[Copernicus]

Yes, it is. Any attempt to argue that it isn't is specious.
thread over.

[Mendacious]

[ QUOTE ]
Where do you draw the line? You could in theory create a precise computer simulation of a bingo cage that could predict the results from that cage

[/ QUOTE ]

There is a difference between predictability and causation.

[Phil153]

While it's true that the results approach some average as the number of games increases, this doesn't prove anything. Blackjack, for example, will tend to a value of 0.4955 over a long period. However, it is still a game of chance.

The point is that when each individual wager is made, the results of that wager are subject to chance. This means that each wager is included under the bill*, and that's enough. Also note that the bill says subject to, not "determined by", as you correctly noted at the start. I have even read discussion of whether the bill would apply to online skill games like checkers, and no one could say for sure.

As for the rest, that's been covered. The language "chance" is not some arcane definition from physics, it's a common language usage that the courts will have no problem interpreting correctly. You could argue, for example, that no casino games are subject to chance as each event (i.e. card shuffle for blackjack) is purely deterministic. I don't think that would get you anywhere.

*provided it's an illegal wager, as determined by other laws such as state laws

[SilverLining1]

I suppose that the online stock market isn't going to be regulated by this bill, seeing that 99.9999% of card carrying republicans will suffer if it was...