Online poker advocates embrace judge’s decision

NEW YORK - A federal judge ruled Tuesday that poker is more a game of skill than chance and cannot be prosecuted under a law created to keep organized crime families from profiting from gambling.

Judge Jack Weinstein's decision was embraced by advocates of card games pushing to legalize Internet poker in the United States. The Brooklyn judge relied extensively on the findings of a defense expert who analyzed online poker games.

The ruling tossed out a jury's July conviction of a man charged with conspiring to operate an illegal underground poker club, a business featuring Texas Hold'em games run in a warehouse where he also sold electric bicycles. There were no allegations in the case that organized crime was involved nor that anything such as money laundering or loansharking occurred.

"Because the poker played on the defendant's premises is not predominately a game of chance, it is not gambling" as defined in the federal law, the judge wrote in a lengthy decision that traced the history of poker and of federal effort to combat illegal gambling.

The judge said his findings will not prevent federal law enforcement authorities from curbing the influence of organized crime because poker games of that nature can be prosecuted through federal racketeering laws. He said it also does not prevent states from banning card games operated as businesses.

Defense lawyer Kannan Sundaram said his client, Lawrence Dicristina is happy with the decision.

Attorney Tom Goldstein, who made arguments before Weinstein on behalf of the Poker Players Alliance, a Washington D.C.-based advocacy group, called the decision a validation for poker players, the tens of millions of people who play the game, and believe they are not gambling, taking a chance, but exercising skill in playing against each other.

In a statement, Poker Players Alliance Executive Director John Pappas said federal prosecutors could not provide an expert who could say that chance outweighs skill in poker.

"Today's federal court ruling is a major victory for the game of poker and the millions of Americans who enjoy playing it," Pappas said. "Judge Weinstein's thoughtful decision recognizes what we have consistently argued for years: poker is not a crime, it is a game of skill."

In his ruling, Weinstein traced the history of poker and the passage of the Illegal Gambling Businesses Act. He said there was little mention of poker by members of Congress, probably because Mafia involvement in poker games at the time was limited.

He noted that one senator worried when the merits of the law were debated in 1970 that it might affect those colleagues of his who "engage in a friendly game of poker now and then."

He was assured it would not.

Las Vegas Review-Journal writer Howard Stutz contributed to this report.