No Poker in Israel

March 31, 2009

The Israeli police have made it very clear that they don’t want poker on their doorstep. There have been many poker games run there over the years, but they have now decided that they don’t want any of that in their country. Today they announced that they will not have any more poker in the country and that it is now officially illegal.

They have announced that the Israel Poker Association, or IPA, will not longer be allowed to run their poker championships in Tel Aviv. They say that poker, and specifically the Texas Hold’em game that the championship is based on, is illegal in their country. They said that the chance element outweighs the skill of the player, therefore making it gambling pure and simple and therefore illegal.

The IPA is now appealing their case to the High Court of Justice to see if they can get the ban reversed. They have gotten a report from a Professor of Mathematics from the University of Tel Aviv that shows it is a game of skill not chance. The report shows that players have to change the way they play throughout the game depending on how the game is going. They say that they have to use mathematical skills to see how they are going to fare depending on the poker game. This undoubtedly shows that it is a game of skill, for if it was a game of chance they would play the same every time.

More than a half of a million Israeli’s are estimated to play poker both online and in the country itself on a regular basis. The Poker Championship brought in more than 600 poker players last year, and the prize total was $29,000.