The Swedish Supreme Court issued a peculiar ruling Wednesday on the legality of poker in Sweden. The justices deemed the game to be both a game of skill and chance, but not in the way most would suspect. The judges deemed tournaments to be a skillful, due much to their structure, but cash games up to predominately luck. Judge Göran Lamberth explained "We have found that the main tournament and its side tournaments were not random chance games, but that skill does come in to it."
However, the court found that the freer form of Texas Hold’em cash games are in breach of Swedish gambling laws. In the cash game players can play when they like, bet when they like, and leave the table at any time.
"We find this form to be a game of pure random chance."
The case stemmed from a 2007 conviction of four men in violation of Sweden's gambling laws for organizing a multi-million kronor tournament in Grebbestad. The event had hundreds of participants and lasted several days.
Expert witnesses testified in February that skill is critical for succeeding in the game. At the time, the judges gave extreme latitude to consider the skill vs. luck question even attending a poker school.
Despite this however the court found that the outcome of the game is too reliant on random chance to be viewed as a purely skill-based game.
Zimba analysis: This ruling flies in the face of poker conventional wisdom that tournament results in the short term are more dependent on luck, whereas cash games without the same time and blind restricting structure allow for a more skill dependent game and result. How could the judges have gotten the opposite impression?
One prominent poker blogger argued that they got the decision correct because they ruled that the mechanics of the tournament, not individual hands in a tournament, are to be judged as being governed by skill or luck and the structured setting and payouts is not one based on luck. I don't find that argument convincing as the elements to determine skillful play are much more in evidence when playing deep stacked poker.
I suppose it comes down to how you define skill.
One prominent poker blogger argued that they got the decision correct because they ruled that the mechanics of the tournament, not individual hands in a tournament, are to be judged as being governed by skill or luck and the structured setting and payouts is not one based on luck. I don't find that argument convincing as the elements to determine skillful play are much more in evidence when playing deep stacked poker.
I suppose it comes down to how you define skill.
