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Gaming Guru  Gambling and the Law: What Is Poker?5 May 2009
Should the prohibitions on internet gambling have a carve-out for online poker? The question is much more complicated than it seems. If the argument is that poker is not gambling but rather a contest of skill, should the exemption be limited to poker tournaments? What is "online" – what about people playing against each others at terminals in a club, or linked clubs? Which laws are getting changed, federal or state? And who is doing the changing, legislature, courts or regulators? Let's start with what should be the easiest question: "What is poker?" I have been asked that question twice while on the witness stand and under oath. Fortunately, in both cases I was prepared. The first came in the 1980s when California card clubs were trying to expand beyond 5-card high, 5-card low and panguini, the only games they were spreading at the time. Even Texas hold 'em was thought to be illegal. The problem was a statute from 1885 which outlawed "stud-horse poker." The Attorney General and local law enforcement thought this outlawed any poker game where a card was dealt face up. They also thought that all forms of poker were illegal except for draw. So, the now defunct Huntington Park Club invented a game to test the law: "7-card down." Here are the rules: players are dealt two cards face down, there is a round of betting; then each remaining player receives three cards face down and there's another round of betting; then the fourth and then the fifth cards are dealt face down with betting rounds. The best five card hand wins. It was purposely designed to look like hold 'em, but clearly to be something else. The L.A. County Counsel tried to shut it down, claiming it violated the prohibition on stud-horse poker. I testified about the years of research I had conducted trying to find out what the stud-horse poker was that was outlawed in 1885. The best I can tell from court cases, 123 year-old newspapers and interviews with an old-timer in Arkansas, which had a case within living memory, stud-horse poker was either a house banked game, 5-card stud, or code for "Let's cheat the newcomer." Whatever it was, it was played with players getting at least one card face up. The judge interrupted my testimony as an expert witness to ask his own question: "What is poker?" My answer was that players got equal number of cards, there was a ranking of hands based on how rare the hand was, but players could win with lower ranked hands if they made a bet that was not called. He then asked, "What is stud poker?" The County's expert testified that multiple betting rounds distinguished stud from draw. I said there are additional forms of poker, including straight poker, the original game, where all the cards are face down but without a draw, and community card games like spit in the ocean and hold 'em. I said that stud poker means at least one of the players' own cards is face up, so that the strength of their hands is shown to all. Journalists speak of a "stud horse headline." These are the ones in gigantic, bold print, like "WAR." My theory is that we know a real live "stud-horse" is a stud horse because he is (don't blush) obviously male. Later, the Legislature removed stud-horse poker from the list of prohibited games, leaving us with the simple question of what is poker? No problem there, right? More next column. Gambling and the Law: Another "What Is Poker" Case5 May 2009
Last column I started the discussion of whether the prohibitions on internet gambling should apply to online poker by asking the fundamental question: "What is poker?"
Twenty years ago I actually had to answer that question under oath in the "7-card down" case I described in my last column. ... (read more)
Gambling and the Law: Jackpot for a Casino Thanks to Great Lawyering28 April 2009
Legal gambling can be one of most profitable businesses around.
Take for example Penn National Gaming. The company owns four Argosy and four Hollywood casinos; manages the 200,000 square foot Rama Casino in Canada; owns three other casinos, including the Empress Joliet; operates telephone and ... (read more)
Gambling and the Law: Of Course It's A Depression6 April 2009
"Buy when there is blood in the streets, even if the blood is your own."
Baron Nathan Rothschild
There is a generally accepted definition of an economic recession – a decline in gross domestic product for two consecutive quarters. But people don't agree on what is a depression until years after ... (read more)
Gambling and the Law: Proving Poker is a Game of SkillHow can we make poker legal? The cleanest way is to get a statute passed through the state legislature. In my book, GAMBLING AND THE LAW, I show how California became the draw poker capital of the world because the state enacted laws in the 19th century that outlawed specific games, like 21 and ... (read more)Gambling and the Law: Don't Finish This BookThere ought to be a law prohibiting anyone from writing a book about gambling who does not know how to make a bet. (There also ought to be a law against writing books if you can't write, but that is a different subject.) Gambling has been at the heart of many stories. The best, inevitably, are ... (read more)Gambling and the Law: The Casino of the Immediate FutureThe casino of the future can be found today, in countries like Vietnam and Cambodia. Many countries have allowed casinos, restricted to foreign tourists. The ones I visited in Cambodia were in hotels in Siem Reap, near the famous ruins of Angkor Wat. What is unusual is to see table games like roulette and baccarat. ... (read more)A surge in the war (of intimidation)The latest news in the United States Department of Justice's war against Internet gambling is not good news for online poker players. Up until 2006, most of the attacks by law enforcement were against sports betting sites. The DOJ has publicly taken the position that the Wire Act, the main federal anti-gambling law that might apply to the Internet, outlaws all forms of gambling. ... (read more)The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 AnalyzedThe Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 was rammed through Congress by the Republican leadership in the final minutes before the election period recess. According to Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-N.J.), no one on the Senate-House Conference Committee had even seen the final language of the bill. ... (read more) |
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