South Carolina Argument

December 21, 2008

A lawyer for five people busted in South Carolina for playing poker will be arguing that they weren’t breaking the law. Police raided the Mount Pleasant home stating that they were playing an illegal poker game, however, their attorney says that according to the law they have not done anything wrong.

Mount Pleasant Municipal Judge J. Lawrence Duffy, Jr. signed a ruling last month allowing arguments to be made in the trials of five of the players. He said that he would decide if the evidence holds weight and only wants to discuss the Texas Hold’em poker game that was going on at the time of the arrests.

The players are only five of 25 that were arrested. Most pled guilty to gambling and paid small fines, but these five got attorneys and said that they have not broken any laws. Their lawyer says that due to South Carolina’s law banning games of chance this specific game does not fall under that heading. They say that their specific version that they were playing is legal.

The poker players have been battling this for about two years, and their attorney is an avid poker player and says that the game is much more about skill than chance. He says that there is undoubtedly a measure of chance in the poker game, the version they were playing it is really about skill.

He says that the law is very clear as to what constitutes illegal poker playing and what doesn’t – and they have been very careful not to break the law.