Raid on NYC clubs underway right now.

[VeraN]

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If gambling became legal, investors would build casinos and that would have a detrimental impact on the city's finance.

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How?

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I don't have statistics to prove the ramifications casinos have on neighboring areas, but if you have ever been to, or know the history of Atlantic City and it's current status, I'm sure you can somewhat relate to what I am talking about.

[Skallagrim]

TTMTTR, we can parse the common usage and meaning of material for quite some time. I have provided the sites to various cases that have interperted the phrase "to a material degree" in the context of gambling laws to equal "the predominant factor." I would therefore expect a NY Court to follow accordingly. The courts have recognized that to interpert the meaning your way would put a lot of games and contests in the gambling category. If material degree means merely influence, think of the wind and the turf in baseball and golf, the toss of the coin in football and chess, the use of dice in wargaming (even that most complex genre of games, used by the army, use dice - or RNG dice - to determine outcomes in certain instances), and virtually every single game that uses dice or cards in any capacity.

If you go with important, How do you quantify that chance? If it decides the game one out 3 times thats gambling, 1 out of 4 not?

So maybe a NY court faced with the issue will go some other way than the predominance test, but I doubt it for the reasons I have mentioned.

As to "more or less necessary," that helps my point, as when a hand is won by folding to one player, the specific cards (the chance) were absolutely unnecessary for that result.

And no one has yet shown me a case that was different in this context.

As to the practical point, any one reading my posts will have already recognized that I pointed out and respect the decision to forego litigating this argument if that is a sure way of staying out of jail. In my practice this is precisely the reason that I have not used a variation of the argument in a case yet. But I will also say that raising the argument and providing some documentation of it made the plea-bargaining process go much better for my client in that case.

No one should construe what I have said here as legal advice for their particular case. NO ONE.

What I have given is an argument that I believe has merit and may be useful to my fellow poker players or may not.

But just think what would happen were the argument to be legally accepted? Eventually the right legal context to present it will occur. "Just one time baby....."

Skallagrim

[Humbled]

You guys are gonna flat out have to drive to AC, either that or just move. Yea it sucks, but thats life.

[jjshabado]

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If gambling became legal, investors would build casinos and that would have a detrimental impact on the city's finance.

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How?

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I don't have statistics to prove the ramifications casinos have on neighboring areas, but if you have ever been to, or know the history of Atlantic City and it's current status, I'm sure you can somewhat relate to what I am talking about.

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You can't compare Atlantic City to a city like New York. Atlantic City was a dump before casinos. I'm more familiar with Niagara Falls and Windsor Ontario, and both places have made money off of their casinos. New York City is so big that allowing gambling would be just one more major industry, and the money that it would generate would be huge.

[Mr Rick]

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The simple point is this, in Poker you can win by getting the other players to fold. When all but one have folded, and neither the player's cards nor the final card(s) are shown, how can anyone say logically that the "cards have determined the outcome of that hand?" They cant. And thats the basis of my proof that poker is more skill than chance, because (at least in holdem, 7stud and omaha - I have not seen stats for other games) THE MAJORITY OF HANDS (ABOUT 60%) ARE FOLDED TO THE WINNER.

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I think the above logic is seriously flawed. In many cases people fold precisely because they have been dealt a bad hand and their opponent raised because they were dealt a good hand. Perhaps you could argue that it takes skill to raise pre-flop (or at any point) but if virtually everybody raises AA, KK, QQ, AK, pre-flop then where is the skill in those cases?

[Skallagrim]

Mr. Rick said "In many cases people fold precisely because they have been dealt a bad hand and their opponent raised because they were dealt a good hand." This is not entirely correct, since you cant see you opponent's "good hand" your hypothetical player is folding because he BELIEVES the opponent has a better hand.

But either way it misses the real point: (using holdem as the example) there is no rule that limits what you do with any two card hand - you can fold AA, you can raise with 2-7os. The question is are the cards determining the outcome, the answer is NO, your reaction/decision to your cards and the actions of your opponents is determining the outcome. Your reaction is NOT CHANCE. Your reaction is an "act of skill," a calculated, intellectual decision you make based on how you see the situation and all the factors.

Do the cards determine your reaction? No, the cards merely influence your reaction (and even then only sometimes, every good player has at one point raised with a hand they knew was crap, they do it because they believe they can succesfully bluff).

"Determine the outcome" is the legal phrase in question. Not "a factor players use in deciding what action to take."

Skallagrim

[*TT*]

Question for all - should this thread be added to the best of sticky? Lots of interesting information here, its juicy.

[Teh1337zor]

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Question for all - should this thread be added to the best of sticky? Lots of interesting information here, its juicy.

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I think so, I learned a hell of a lot from it.

[Jonezycat]

Best thread I've read in years regarding poker.

BTW Skall, I think you're on to something and glad to see so many great minds passionate about the game of poker.

[Skallagrim]

Thanks jonezycat, there are actually a lot of very intelligent folks working for poker, both preparing for court battles (like me) and working on the political front.

I lay claim to being the first to come up with the basic idea: separate poker into hands decided by the cards and hands decided by the actions of the players. If more hands are decided by player actions, then poker must be a game of mostly skill.

But credit is also due to TruepokerCEO (his screen name here on 2+2) who ran the numbers from the records of Truepoker and posted the results, giving us the base figure of roughly 60% of hands being ended before the final card.

And credit will go to a number of folks you will hear from in the future who have taken the argument seriously and are working on providing even more evidence and fine tuning the argument. This lot includes some Harvard math professors and some famous poker pros, but without their direct permission I feel uncomfortable naming them here.

The fight to keep/make poker legal goes on on many fronts and all are important. The litigation front is my specialty, and I am proud to be able to do even a small bit to help the future of the game.

Now back to my 1/2 NL game, but I will continue this discussion here and everywhere else I believe it might help our goal: betting on poker should be just as legal as betting on golf. Well, at least as legal as bridge, mahjong, cribbage, etc... but I like to use the golf analogy most because I know most judges bet on golf [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] .

Skallagrim