The Hague: Poker is Not Gambling

At the Court of Justice in The Hague poker has recently been judged not being a gambling game, according to Dutch laws.

In 2006 commenced a lawsuit in the case of players who were accused of organising illegal gambling, poker to be precise. Despite poker had been considered gambling since 1998, the Court thought it otherwise and dropped the charges.

Advocate Peter Plasman

A formula has been invented some years ago by Professor Ben van der Genugten from the University of Tilburg, assigning a value to each game between 0 and 1, according to its dependence on luck skill. Where beginners and pros show little difference in results in the long run, e.g. in roulette, the value is 0; where results entirely depend on the players’ understanding of the game, it is 1.

Although several newly introduced games have been evaluated according to this system since its introduction, previously categorised games such as poker, although rated, have been not revised. As poker got 0,4 (which is close to the rating of chess), Advocate Peter Plasman argued poker is a matter of luck in the short term but further payoff depends on the skills of the players.

Prosecution announced they will appeal, as “in every country in the neighbourhood poker is considered gambling. It is still apparent to us that this is indeed the case...” Well, although such decisions are always welcome in the poker player community, in the end it does come down to Fortune to decide what the hand will be...