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Some information
Posted By: Steve Mellen In Response To: In backgammon, skilled players generally beat those with fewer skills and players improve with practice! (Joe Russell)
Date: Tuesday, 19 October 2010, at 2:56 p.m.
A copy of the decision appealed from can be found at the PPA website.
The poker players were convicted of gambling in municipal court, the conviction was reversed on appeal by the circuit court, and now the state supreme court will make the final ruling.
There doesn't seem to be much room to dispute that poker is a game of skill. In fact, the municipal court - which convicted the defendants in the first place - said the evidence was "overwhelming" that poker is a game of skill.
How did they get convicted, then? Well, most states define "gambling" according to something called the "dominant factor test": If chance predominates over skill in determining the outcome of an activity, then it's gambling. However, South Carolina has never explicitly adopted the dominant factor test. Accordingly, the municipal court judge felt he had no alternative but to convict, even though he agreed poker is predominantly about skill.
The circuit court judge, in the opinion you can read at the link, examined prior decisions of the South Carolina Supreme Court and decided that even though they hadn't adopted the dominant factor test, it seemed very likely that they would do so, since the language of their rulings is very similar to the test. The South Carolina Attorney General, in giving legal opinions on whether a given activity is legal or not, has also relied upon the dominant factor test to define "gambling."
I'm not sure if my legal predictions are based more on luck or skill, but I would think the poker players have a good chance to win today.
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