With a New York federal judge making a ruling that poker is more a game of skill than chance, this could probably one of the first steps to the legalization of online poker in the United States.
This ruling by US District Judge Jack Weinstein was made based on the lawsuit where a New York electronics dealer was charged with the violation of a federal gambling law because he was running Texas Hold ‘Em poker games at his Staten Island warehouse.
What makes this lawsuit (and its ruling) unique is the fact that this is the first time that a federal court has considered poker’s status as a game of skill instead of a game of chance, and which causes the game to fall under gambling laws.
Quite intriguingly, this decision is in direct opposition to the crackdown by federal authorities on three of the largest poker websites last year, and which dropped the amount of spending on poker from $ 20.2 billion in 2010 to only $3.5 billion this year.
State laws also work towards prohibiting companies from taking bets online or in person while being backed by the federal government through laws in the form of the Illegal Gambling Act – and that was used in the crackdown on the aforementioned poker websites and their executives.
However, with this ruling not being binding outside of Judge Weinstein’s district, it is highly unlikely that the restrictions placed by the state and federal government will ease and open the Internet to poker operators like before.