games of skill

[formula_2002]

The other night, I heard that some time ago, the California courts declared poker a game of skill and was therefore exempt from gambling laws.

I wonder, if asked, would they include horse racing ?

[Valuist]

Let's see; basically nobody beats the races in their first 4-5 years or so because it takes that long to truly learn the fundamentals. Yet there's yahoos playing poker on ESPN who started playing 6 months ago who are now "skilled" players. What game do you think requires more skill?

[rrbauer]

In poker they don't drag 20% from the pot before they pay it out. If they did you would have most poker players walking around looking like most horse players--busted.

[sq764]

The other night, I heard that some time ago, the California courts declared poker a game of skill and was therefore exempt from gambling laws.

I wonder, if asked, would they include horse racing ?
Well you can't beat it with all your math wizardry, so obviously, it is..

[midnight]

I play both and have played poker semi-profesionally for years. I play a lot more poker nowadays because of the explosion of interest and the resultant newbies that show up.

It's MUCH easier to become a winning poker player than a winning horseplayer (something most of us already knew). In fact, I've gotten to the point where I'm only playing my mechanical (database-generated) selections (from HTR) and spending the rest of my time playing in the small buy-in no-limit holdem games and small buy-in tournaments online and in a few Vegas poker rooms.