World News

Poker has arrived as a serious academic issue, if recent information from New York is any indication. According to press release information from various sources, an article appeared in Gaming Law Review and Economics that deals with the issue of poker as a game of skill versus poker as a game of chance/luck. The article was written by a professor at the Albany Law School’s Government Law Center, Bennett Liebman. This learned fellow apparently takes issue with the way that the State of New York is interpreting the legal test surrounding this issue.

Liebman proposes that the question of skill-versus-chance was answered decades ago in legal decisions handed down by state courts. In answer to the “what constitutes gambling” question, Liebman states that a game that is predominantly skill is not gambling. The Poker Players Alliance (PPA) has stated that New York has been the site of some “questionable prosecutions” in regard to gambling and poker. John Pappas, executive director of the PPA, stated that the work by Professor Liebman “corroborates what every poker enthusiast knows as well as what numerous legal decisions have pointed out – that poke is a game of skill, not a game of chance.”  The question of skill vs. chance continues, though Liebman’s writing gives new strength to the skill side of the issue.