In case anyone still cares about the never-ending poker ‘skill v. luck’ debate, a court in the Netherlands has come down on the side of ‘skill,’ much to the relief of the organizers of a local poker tournament. This week saw an Amsterdam court acquit three men who’d been charged with violating their country’s Gambling Act for organizing a poker tournament way back in 2007. Peter Plasman, the attorney representing the three men in court, had argued that the Gambling Act’s restrictions didn’t apply because poker was a skill game and the court bought it. Plasman won a similar victory in 2010 in The Hague.
The Netherland Times quoted Plasman saying the ruling had cleared the way for other individuals to host poker tournaments in the Netherlands, but he subsequently told PokerNews.com that the court ruling didn’t mean a different judge might not arrive at the exact opposite conclusion in a future case, so proceed at your own risk. Plasman also didn’t advise anyone to attempt to extend the court’s ruling to the online realm. Plasman said the fact that the land-based players were all physically present in the same room allowed for more demonstrable evidence of psychological gamesmanship like bluffing.
GERMANY SAYS POKER TOURNEY BUY-INS AREN’T WAGERS
A little further east, Germany’s Federal Administrative Court has reversed a lower court ruling that said poker tournament entrance fees qualified as wagers under the German Interstate Treaty on Gambling. On Jan. 22, the federal court said tournament buy-ins do not meet the definition of a “wager to obtain an opportunity to win” because the buy-in is primarily used to cover the costs of hosting the tournament.
The ruling is similar to one the same court made in October regarding entrance fees for fantasy football league play. In that decision, the court ruled that the entrance fee only allowed the entrants to participate in the league whereas the opportunity to win any prize money was dependent on the participants’ subsequent selection of individual Bundesliga players to make up their fantasy team, an action that didn’t require further financial expenditure.
The legal eagles at DLA Piper cautioned that their understanding of the Jan. 22 ruling came via a press release, not the actual ruling itself, meaning there may be further qualifications that limit the ruling’s impact. But the court appears to be saying that merely buying into a poker tourney doesn’t amount to a wager because it only allows you to take a seat at a table. You’re required to put forth further effort to attempt to obtain any payoff, making less of a direct connection between the fee paid and the opportunity to win anything.
