Is Poker a Game of Skill? An Idaho Court Thinks So

Poker may be recognized as a Mind Sport alongside other intellectual pursuits like chess and bridge by the International Mind Sports Association (IMSA), but in the US the popular pastime is largely forbidden under archaic state laws that not only prevent raked poker games but often times extend to simple kitchen table poker.

For the most part these laws go unenforced (thankfully), but that was not the case in Idaho back in 2013 when a small stakes home poker game was raided and two men, Mike Kasper and Jared Leuzinger were arrested simply for playing poker.

“We thought it was a joke when we heard a knock on the door and they said, ‘Boise Police,'” Kasper told kboi2.com. “They come in with their guns drawn and we’re like ‘okay this isn’t a joke I guess.'”

Kasper explained their game as a small stakes affair that he and his friends had been participating in sporadically since high school, never realizing they were committing a crime.

Questioning the law, Leuzinger and Kasper decided to fight the misdemeanor gambling charges, and set in motion a case that could possibly help eradicate these silly laws from Idaho’s books, and possibly from other states as well.

Idaho law defines gambling as “games of chance, including craps, roulette, poker, baccarat or keno,” but the statute also makes an exception for “Bona fide contests of skill,” and this caveat is where Leuzinger and Kasper, along with help from the Poker Players Alliance, decided to make their case.

In the end the judge overseeing the case ruled in favor of the defendants, and called poker a game of skill in his opinion. An opinion that now has the potential to change the legality of home poker games across the nation… as long as there are people like Mike Kasper and Jared Leuzinger willing to fight for their rights in other locales.

Previous “skill” case was overturned

This isn’t the first time the “poker is a game of skill” argument has arisen in a US courtroom.

You may recall back in 2012 when New York resident Lawrence DiCristina fought a somewhat similar arrest on the same grounds – The difference between the DiCrisitna case and the case in Idaho is DiCristina was hosting raked poker games.

The original ruling was in favor of DiCristina, with the judge presiding over the case stating that poker was indeed a game of skill in his opinion, but the case was later overturned, with the circuit judge ruling that the raked nature of the games DiCristina was operating made them patently illegal, and the poker as a gamed of skill argument somewhat of a moot point.

The case made it all the way to the Supreme Court, but the high court decided to not hear the case in April of 2014.

It’s unknown if the Idaho district attorney will appeal the ruling but it seems unlikely given the different circumstances and the actual crime the defendants were charged with –misdemeanor fines vs. criminal charges that carry a potential jail sentence.