September 2nd, 2010 by admin
Anti-gambling laws in many states may be hit if judges agree it’s not game of chance
By DeeDee Correll Tribune Newspapers
DENVER – — Let’s say you’re playing poker and you need one more diamond for a flush. The dealer turns a card, reveals a diamond and you win the hand. Was it skill or luck?
The answer is affecting the fates of people across the country accused of breaking anti-poker laws, people like Kevin Raley, 44, of Colorado.
As an engineer, Raley finds the mathematics of poker come easily, and he’s pretty good at keeping a blank face. Reading other people, though, is something he’s always working on. “It’s something I’m better at today than I was five years ago,” Raley said.
This goes to the point Raley is trying to make: The better he gets, the more he wins.
Arrested a year ago for running a $20 buy-in Texas Hold ‘em tournament at a bar in Greeley, but acquitted by a jury, Raley hopes to convince the Colorado Supreme Court that poker hinges more on skill than chance.
Most states generally tolerate poker as legal as long as it’s confined to games among friends in which no one outside the players makes a profit. In Colorado, it’s illegal to participate in a game in which rake — a commission fee charged by the poker operator — is taken.
It’s also one of 37 states where a game of skill doesn’t constitute gambling, said Chuck Humphrey, a Colorado-based lawyer and expert in gambling laws.
At his January trial in Colorado, Raley argued that poker is a game of skill and that the tournament had been a game among friends. Prosecutors maintained that it was neither.
In a review of Raley’s case this month, a judge said poker relies heavily on chance. “A poker player may give himself a statistical advantage through skill or experience, but that player is always subject to defeat when the next card is turned,” Weld County District Judge James Hartmann wrote.
Tim Ouellette, of Greeley, disagrees. Ouellette, 46, of Greeley, was arrested along with Raley, but charges against him were dismissed following Raley’s acquittal. “It’s not like roulette or craps where you throw the dice and you have no control over it,” Ouellette said.
Raley is now petitioning the Colorado Supreme Court to weigh in on the question of skill versus luck.
Other recent skirmishes include a South Carolina case in which five men were arrested in a 2006 raid on a game of Texas Hold ‘em. They were convicted this year by a municipal court judge who said he agreed that poker hinged on skill but felt it wasn’t clear whether that was relevant under state law. The men are appealing.
In Pennsylvania’s Columbia County, a judge dismissed charges in January against a man accused of running a poker game out of his garage, ruling that he hadn’t committed a crime because when skill predominates, it’s not gambling.
A central figure in several recent legal battles, including Raley’s, is University of Denver statistics professor Bob Hannum, who studies gaming mathematics. In games of chance, “it doesn’t matter what you try to do,” he said. “You can be playing against a monkey, and the monkey will do just as well as you.”
No so with poker, Hannum said. Numerous studies all indicate that in poker the predominant factor is skill, he said.
But don’t tell that to Gary Norton, the district attorney in Columbia County.
“In Texas Hold ‘em, there’s one choice: hold or fold,” Norton said. “It’s our position that this is gambling — that there’s a huge element of chance in the dealing of cards.”
In Colorado, Raley and Ouellette and the three friends arrested with them no longer play at their favorite bar, but at a friend’s home.
And if they succeed in their petition to the Colorado Supreme Court?
“Kevin and I have talked about opening up a poker room of our own,” Ouellette said.
xcxdcorrell@tribune.com
Copyright © Chicago Tribune
September 2nd, 2010 by admin
By Jessica Welman for POKER NEWS DAILY
Last week Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley told members of the Poker Players Alliance (PPA) that she would be rejecting their bid to include an online poker initiative on Massachusetts ballots in 2010. Citing a failure to meet the legal requirements to make it onto the ballot, Coakley’s decision is the latest setback for the PPA and other lobbying groups trying to expand gambling in Massachusetts.
The gambling initiative was not the only question that failed to meet Coakley’s standards. The Associated Press reported that she also rejected two mortgate-related proposals and an initiative to put a percentage of the state budget towards local aid. According to Coakley’s official website the online poker petition was rejected on the grounds that it was not in the proper form. John Pappas of the PPA explained that Coakley objected to the use of the words “license” and “register” to describe a proposed 5% fee on internet gambling. The alternate descriptors left Coakley unable to determine the full ramifications of the initiative, resulting in the petition’s rejection.
The petition, filed on August 5th by Randy Castonguay, sought to clarify internet gambling’s legal standing in the state and proposed regulation and taxation measures as well and is just the latest initiative in the extensive lobbying campaign of the PPA and other pro-gambling groups in the state of Massachusetts. A recent article by the Associated Press reported that lobbying groups have spent over $5 million over the past four years funding their efforts. That money has gone towards a number of different legal initiatives including bringing brick and mortar casinos to the state and regulating online poker.
Coakley is an outspoken opponent of the internet gambling cause and her official website claims any form of online gambling is illegal, despite the fact that Massachusetts is not one of the six states with laws expressly banning the activity. With the recent ruling in the iMEGA case that positioned the legal standing of online poker and other forms of online gambling as something to be determined by individual states, Coakley’s stance has many online poker enthusiasts up in arms.
Of even more concern to the PPA and other lobbying groups is Coakley’s recent announcement that she will be running in the race to fill the late Senator Ted Kennedy’s now-empty Senate seat. So far Coakley and fellow Democrat Rep. Stephen Lynch have announced their candidacy and Lynch’s fellow House members Michael Capuano and Edward Markey are also rumored to be considering campaigns. Joseph Kennedy II, the son of late Senator Robert F. Kennedy, still remains undecided about whether or not he will try and carry on the Kennedy’s political legacy.
In the wake of Coakley’s announcement she will be running in the Senate race, she has been leveled with criticism suggesting the time-consuming campaign will affect her ability to continue on as the state’s Attorney General. In addition to occupying the bulk of her time between now and Election Day, these critics are also concerned that political aspirations will mar her ability to make impartial judicial decisions. Coakley told the Boston Herald she is still fully dedicated to her current position. “I am still AG,” she explained. “They can reach me 24/7. I have been and will remain involved in the major decisions in the office.”
Coakley’s campaign has already hit an early snag as a group of Republicans filed a complaint against her with state Office of Campaign and Political Finance and the Federal Election Commission for improperly allocating funds from her state campaign to pay for polling and other expenses related to her Senate campaign.
September 2nd, 2010 by admin
The attorney general of Massachusetts prevented an intrastate online poker bill from advancing to the ballot and declared online gambling in all forms illegal in the state, just as she swore running for US Senate wouldn’t influence her job.
Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, who has used an anti-gambling stance to enhance public awareness of her, refused to allow state residents to vote on creating regulated intrastate online poker. Coakley told the Poker Players Alliance a measure to allow poker players to play online as long as both server and bettor were in Massachusetts wasn’t written in proper form to be included on the fall ballot.
Coakley announced this week she would run for the US Senate seat vacated by the death of Ted Kennedy. Immediately she had to field questions about her ability to continue as Attorney General while campaigning, but insisted her political ambition would not affect her performance as AG.
“I will stay involved,” Coakley told the Boston Herald. “I have been and will remain involved in the major decisions in the office.”
While Coakley asserted her attention to tasks at hand, it was uncertain whether critics had thought she would neglect her job, or whether they had meant she now has political implications lying on legal decisions such as reviewing the online poker initiative.
Coakley told poker advocates that the wording of the bill left in question whether Massachusetts would be able to legally force the payment of a suggested five percent tax on Internet poker deposits.
Despite the presence of no state law against Internet gambling, Coakley’s office states on its website that all online gambling is illegal.
Published by EdBradley
