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While poker enthusiasts and activists alike insists that poker is a “game of skill” and not really gambling, one billionaire just made the claim that poker is indeed gambling. That would be one Sheldon Adelson, who has pushed to prevent online poker from becoming legalized in the US. He said that skill does play a role, but he apparently sees that as negligible, CardPlayer.com noted.
“They say poker is a game of skill,” Adelson said. “I don’t know how skill can apply to somebody shuffling a deck of cards and randomly giving them out to you. You don’t have any control over it. Can somebody bluff and can somebody place bets better than somebody else? Yes. But that doesn’t make poker a game of skill.”
It’s not just players who have made the proclamation that “poker is a game of skill”.
Judges have ruled in favor of this argument as well.
Case in point: In 2012, Federal District Court in Brooklyn Judge Jack B. Weinstein tossed out the conviction of a man charged with running backroom warehouse poker games in Staten Island, New York. He ultimately vacated the indictment of Lawrence DiCristina. This is now widely cited case law whereby the judge argued poker to be more about skill than chance.
“The most skillful professionals earn the same celestial salaries as professional ballplayers,” he wrote in the exhaustive 120-page ruling that detailed the history of poker in the United States.
- Ace King, Gambling911.com
