Pennsylvania Judge rules poker a game of skill

<img src="http://www.tlpoker.com.br/staff/Raidern/09january/balanza.jpg" align="right" style="margin:5px; border:1px solid black;">A small but important step towards online poker legalization in the U.S.. <b>Thomas James Jr.</b>, a judge from Pennsylvania, ruled Texas Hold’em as a game of skill in a court hearing last Friday. According to the Judge, the problem had a simple solution: <i> "…] if chance predominates, Texas Hold’em is gambling. If skill predominates, it is not gambling."</i> The judge explained that there are a lot of available material out there describing winning strategies. He also cited books, websites and quoted Mike Caro’s Secrets of Winning Poker, saying that <i>"the money flows from the bad players to the strong players."</i>

During the hearing Thomas James Jr. said that <i>"Beginning poker players rely on big hands and lucky draws. Expert poker players use their skills to minimize their losses on their bad hands and maximize their profits on their big hands."</i>.

The defendant in the case was <b>Walter Watkins</b>, who ran a Hold’em game in his garage. No rake was taken during the game, instead players just tipped the dealer by the end of each hand. Watkins and the dealer, <b>Diane Dent</b>, were charged facing 20 charges each. They were cleared from all charges due to the judge’s ruling. Watkins said: <i>"It’s unfortunate we had to go through all this. We were arrested, taken out of our home. Shackled and spent a night in prison. All for playing poker."</i>

According to <b>John Pappas</b> – Executive Director of <a href="http://pokerplayersalliance.org/">Poker Players Alliance</a> – the ruling sets an excellent bar for future poker litigation. Despite being a minor case, it is still a positive step for poker. With all the recent discussion involving changes in the U.S. Congress and the polemic UIGEA, such a decision could not have come in better time.

woohoo good news for poker finally :D

hmm i dunno if this is good news, if canada decides poker is a game of skill i may have to pay taxes

i like things the way they are

PA representing! about time

Actually quite surprised this isnt more frequent an occurence. I myself being from New Jersey am fortunate to have Atlantic City in my backyard but if that were not the case I wouldnt care about any laws and would risk the trouble for a hobby I love and enjoy. Good for PA and hopefully this becomes more commonplace around the US.

GO USA

actually tom i'm pretty sure that if poker is your primary source of income then it's taxable in canada. But if you're a student or have a job that supports you (even mcdonalds) then your income from poker is tax-free.

Move to the UK. UK is very lenient towards "gambling". You do not have to pay any taxes at all from Poker. If they did, it would actually make things alot worse for the goverment.

Here is an interesting read regarding taxes - http://www.thehendonmob.com/Articles/poker%20and%20the%20taxman.htm

On topic, Tom has a good point. It is probably a good thing the way it is setup right now in America. It could be alot worse...

Easgate moved to UK to pay only 40% from taxes instead of 72% in danemark, no?

Well basically income taxes do not apply to gambling winnings, otherwise the Inland Revenue would have to give an allowance on the losses aswell. As far as I am aware, there is no clear law. But certainly for the "recreational" poker player, you do not pay taxes.

And here is what Tillerman said - http://www.tillerman.net/2005/10/poker-winnings-and-tax.html

apparently a thing about legalizing poker in the states, regarding obama and stuff.

http://citizensbriefingbook.change.go...800000004m5M&srPos=0&srKp=087

Saw it at 2+2

can someone throw a good link out there for poker taxes in the states please........

nice =) let's hope this starts a flow of cases.

the judge is a hero grinder obv

afaik France doesn't pay taxes either @ poker.

happy to be from PA!

lol @ poker being a game of skill... i just put money into the pot and get lucky

On January 19 2009 18:29 PowerHausAA wrote: can someone throw a good link out there for poker taxes in the states please........

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i1040.pdf

Page 28 of the instructions shows that "gambling winnings" go on the "Other Income" line of your tax return. Of course, here's what Pokerstars told me last year:


"We are not a US based company and as such are not required to provide
any information to the IRS. We do not report players' winnings to the
IRS, and the IRS has never requested such information.

Also note that PokerStars does not deduct tax from any cheques we send to
players. As laws vary around the world, it is the responsibility of the
players to adhere to their own regional laws.

Therefore, we suggest that you inquire locally regarding your
responsibility of claiming winnings.

We appreciate your co-operation.


Regards,

Morgan
PokerStars Support Team"

Therefore, the odds of the IRS finding you for not reporting gambling winnings are pretty slim. If they do, though, watch out.

On January 19 2009 20:02 JonnyCosMo wrote: lol @ poker being a game of skill... i just put money into the pot and get lucky

so that's what i'm doing wrong.

On January 19 2009 17:28 Chewits wrote: Move to the UK. UK is very lenient towards "gambling". You do not have to pay any taxes at all from Poker. If they did, it would actually make things alot worse for the goverment. Here is an interesting read regarding taxes - http://www.thehendonmob.com/Articles/poker%20and%20the%20taxman.htm On topic, Tom has a good point. It is probably a good thing the way it is setup right now in America. It could be alot worse...

so enticing, I enjoyed my time in the UK

nice

yes!

DIE UIGEA DIE

ahhhh yes now if our politicians would just do the same everything would turn out great

From my HH, Thomas James Jr. is a major shark over at ipoker.

On January 19 2009 15:59 TalentedTom wrote: hmm i dunno if this is good news, if canada decides poker is a game of skill i may have to pay taxes i like things the way they are

As long as the game is being played in a casino I don't think they can charge people taxes in Canada, and Canada owns %100 of all casino's in its country.

imo the 'starting/weak' players pay off the 'veterans/strong' players for a couple years until they themselves become strong etc then they get paid off by the new generation of starting/weak players its a vicious cycle..

If you guys can give me the party names I can pull the official opinion.

Then you can look at what was actually said, not just cardplayers interpretation of it.

I am interested in this claim

'However, Judge James said that Texas Hold’em games between individual players had to be treated differently and cited several academic works in reaching his conclusion that skill was the predominant factor in determining Texas Hold’em winners. “The compelling case that Texas Hold’em is much more a game of skill is found in many diverse sources,” the judge said.'

does anyone of you know how to get the court proceedings at all? I want to have a look at the 'academic works' the judge talked about.

On January 19 2009 15:59 TalentedTom wrote: hmm i dunno if this is good news, if canada decides poker is a game of skill i may have to pay taxes i like things the way they are

I don't think the government in any country has any right to tax poker players whether they consider it gambling or a game of skill. My reasoning for this is that you are not providing a service or a product to anyone. In fact you are actually being provided a service which you pay for. The only taxable party in this situation should be the 3rd party providing the service.

For Example: Pokerstars charges rake for us to play in their online cash games.

If rakeback exists then one can presume it is entirely possible for individual rake contribution to be calculated and therefore rake contribution by country to be calculated. Each individual country could then charge Pokerstars tax on the business they do with their citizens. So if Canadians contributed twenty million in rake to Pokerstars then Canada would get the appropriate tax revenue from that money.

Taking money out of the players pockets is literally the government just deciding it wants a share of the pie which they haven't earned. I'm not a professional athlete and I'm not being paid to do what I do when I play poker. I don't receive a steady paycheck, any kind of benefits, or employment security. Is the government going to share in the losing when I'm on a downswing?

The only appropriate situation for taxing poker players is if someone had a stable of cash-game players where they paid them to play the game. For example if you ran a business where you taught players to beat 50NL full-ring which is a fairly easy thing to do and then paid them minimum wage to work 40 hours a week for you playing 6-8 FR tables or more once their job training was completed. In fact in Canada right now you can only be taxed for this particular situation. In which case the companies earnings are taxed. Not a bad idea for a business though especially since you could probably grow it to something like twenty employees pretty quickly without having too many players on the same tables.

Awesome, we need more judges who play poker imo.

i found the court proceeding myself, so will withdraw back the $20 offer.