In determining the legality of online poker - a multibillion dollar industry - courts have relied heavily on the issue of whether or not poker is a game of skill. Using newly available data, we analyze that question by examining the performance in the 2010 World Series of Poker of a group of poker players identified as being highly skilled prior to the start of the events. Those players identified a priori as being highly skilled achieved an average return on investment of over 30 percent, compared to a -15 percent for all other players. This large gap in returns is strong evidence in support of the idea that poker is a game of skill.

• Skill Vs Luck In Poker Room
• Skill Vs Luck In Poker Real Money

• We would like to thank Carter Mundell for truly outstanding research assistance. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

  
  

Published Versions

“The Role of Skill Versus Luck in Poker Evidence from the World Series of Poker,” Journal of Sports Economics : 2012 (with Thomas J. Miles). DOI: 10.1177/15270 02512449471 citation courtesy of

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Published Versions “The Role of Skill Versus Luck in Poker Evidence from the World Series of Poker,” Journal of Sports Economics: 2012 (with Thomas J. DOI: 10.1177/2449471 citation courtesy of. Skill in poker (or sprinting or golf, if the result you’re aiming for is winning, not scoring) is a function of who you’re playing with. So is online poker luck or skill (it doesn’t help that some of the legal cases revolve around which one “predominates,” which I point out also will depend on the length of the session. Skill versus luck has normally been seen in the context of whether or not poker is gambling. It is time to redefine the issue and recognize that its importance is in not whether to regulate, but how to regulate. Joss Wood - A former editor of Poker Industry Pro, Joss Wood is a graduate in English from the University of Birmingham. Skill vs Luck in Poker essaysIn every casino game, except poker, luck is the leading factor on whether you win or lose. Playing Texas Hold 'em, a form of poker, is one way to skew the odds in your favor. Hold 'em is a game that takes a minute to learn and a lifetime to master. Poker – All About Skill. Of these three, poker is definitely the most skillful game. Texas Hold’em, which most people refer to when talking about poker, is pretty much all about skill. Anyone can win in a single cash game or a tournament. However, it’s been proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that skill triumphs over luck in the long run.

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Any player worth a pair of deuces will tell you that poker is a game of skill. In the words of Lancey Howard, the unbeatable master in classic film The Cincinnati Kid, it’s all about “making the wrong move at the right time” – a snippet of wisdom he delivers after beating the Kid’s full house with a straight flush, a combination of hands with odds that have since been calculated to be in excess of 20-million-to-one.

Chris Moneymaker, winner of the 2003 World Series of Poker Main Event and surely the greatest example of nominative determinism in the game, once remarked:

The beautiful thing about poker is that everybody thinks they can play.

And he’s right.

Online poker rooms, which in 2013 alone generated an estimated £2.8 billion in gross winnings globally, attract millions of beginners whose assessment of their own abilities bears little relation to reality.

Naturally, there has never been any doubt that luck plays a part. The aforementioned greenhorns wouldn’t hang around for long if it didn’t. Equally, it would be bizarre to deny that at least some measure of skill must be involved – otherwise why would some competitors win more consistently than their rivals?

Chance vs skill

But the key question is whether one element dominates the other. The reasoning is simple enough: if chance dominates skill then poker is a game of chance, and if skill dominates chance then poker is a game of skill. This is what I set out to determine in research recently published in PLOS One, with colleagues Rogier Potter van Loon at the Erasmus University Rotterdam and Martijn van den Assem at VU University Amsterdam.

Drawing on a database of 456m player-hand observations from a year’s worth of online games, we first investigated how consistent player performance was. This revealed substantial evidence of the role of skill in successful play.

For instance, players who ranked in the best-performing 10% in the first six months of the year were more than twice as likely as others to do similarly well in the next six months. And, players who finished in the best-performing 1% in the first half of the year were 12 times more likely than others to repeat the feat in the second half. Meanwhile, players who fared badly from the start continued to lose and hardly ever metamorphosed into top performers.

The point here is that performance is predictable. In a game of chance there would be no correlation in the winnings of players across successive periods, whereas there would be in a game of skill. So we know for sure that poker can’t be a game of pure chance.

The tipping point

But that still leaves the crucial question of whether skill dominates chance. To examine this we ran simulations comparing the performance of skilled and unskilled players. We found the tipping point: skilled players can expect to do better than their relatively unskilled counterparts at least three quarters of the time after 1,471 hands have been played.

In other words, poker becomes a game of skill after around 1,500 hands. To put this into perspective, most online players are likely to play 1,500 hands in 19 to 25 hours – and less than that if they play multiple tables at the same time.

Of course, devoted players everywhere might feel inclined to celebrate this revelation. They can bask in the satisfaction of knowing the game they love demands and rewards genuine proficiency and that in the end talent and guile will usually triumph over blind luck.

Legal implications

But the issue is about more than validation and bragging rights. You might well wonder why researchers are spending their time formulating equations rooted in the myriad complexities of Texas Hold ‘Em. The reason? Whether poker is viewed as a game of chance or a game of skill has potentially major legal implications.

Doubts surrounding poker’s claim to being a game of skill have shaped legislation for years. Players in the UK currently pay no tax on their winnings, which is good news for everyone from the most modest online tyro to the likes of writer and TV presenter Victoria Coren Mitchell, whose career earnings on the professional circuit exceed £1.5m.

Skill Vs Luck In Poker Room

In some countries what are perceived to be games of chance are subject to much tougher jurisdiction: in most US states, for example, online poker has been essentially illegal since the passing of the 2006 Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act.

Skill Vs Luck In Poker Real Money

All of this could change if policymakers take heed of these findings that show the opposite. Even without them, the American legal system has already argued the case several times over, with judgements upheld, overturned and upheld again. Perhaps fittingly, there’s an awful lot of money at stake and we can expect the debate to rumble on, as new evidence comes to light.