Perception of Poker is Incorrect

February 24, 2009

The perception in the United States is that online poker is illegal, and that it has been so since the passage of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, or UIGEA. However, this is incorrect, and recent court cases have only started bringing this to light. The fact of the matter is that poker is being lumped in with many other kinds of gambling that are illegal but poker is not in the same category.

Poker is not a game of chance like many other gambling types are, it is a game of skill which some people are just starting to realize. The Poker Players Alliance has been working across the nation for the past few years to change the country’s perception of what the game is about. They are trying to get it exempt from the UIGEA because that describes and entails types of gaming that are chance based.

Most recently judges in both Colorado and Pennsylvania have ruled that poker is a game of skill and not a chance based game. Before it was simply experts in the game of poker and gambling that would rule it as such, but with legal precedent now set it changes the rules of the game. These cases were against those that had been arrested and tried with running illegal poker playing, due to the idea that poker playing was a chance game.

But the judges threw out the cases and ruled with the poker players saying that they were basically based on an archaic principle. The judges have allowed poker to now flourish in ways that it could not before because of the stigmatism attached to it.