France may be looking at some serious changes when it comes to poker legislation, all because of a case against the manager of St. Tropez and Les Coulisses, Jean-Pierre Gleizes, who was charged with organizing unlicensed poker games among a private group of players. Gleizes was able to convince the court that poker is not a game of chance, but is in fact a game of skill, as many poker players have been saying for decades, and the judge dismissed the charges against Gleizes, as the laws against gambling no longer apply to his activities if poker is no longer considered gambling. Although the prosecution immediately appealed the decision and few experts believe that the judge’s ruling will be upheld through the appeal, the ruling has a lot of people talking.
The defense wasn’t shy about bringing people forward to state their case. During the hearing, the judge heard from a professional poker player, a mathematician who plays poker recreationally, and chess and bridge champions, all of whom said one thing: poker is clearly a game of skill. There is a precedent for this kind of argument, as backgammon was considered a game of chance in the US until 1981, when tournament director Ted Barr was arrested for promoting gambling and took the court to task over their definition of backgammon as a game of chance. While some people consider poker a game of chance, due to the fact that cards are dealt randomly, pros like Annette Obrestad have demonstrated that one doesn’t even need to look at the cards in one’s hand to win a tournament! In 1981, the argument was much the same– because backgammon involved dice, legislators believed that it had to be a game of chance, although the witnesses called to the stand demonstrated that there is no randomness to winning– experienced players consistently beat new players– and there were countless options available to the player after the dice had landed.
If the Supreme Court upholds the judge’s ruling there will be several major changes resulting from the decision (and likely more legislation to correct the loopholes):
- Professional poker players will be taxed on their poker-related income, as poker playing would now be considered a skillful profession. While players are already taxed on gambling winnings, the taxation rate for income is much higher, meaning that the players have less loot to take home.
- Online poker casinos will no longer be taxed, as the French gaming and taxation bill passed in 2009 only addresses taxation for games of chance, and not games of skill. If the ruling is upheld, expect a quick legislative push to add poker and other skill-based games to the gambling/taxation law.
This ruling follows two months after a strange ruling in Sweden’s Supreme Court, where they ruled that poker tournaments are games of skill, while cash games are games of chance. Despite the clear confusion surrounding the nature of this ruling, it was lauded as a step in the right direction for poker, which gains a little more clout with every official acknowledgment that it is, in fact, a game that requires the utmost skill. Only time will tell if France will be able to come to the same conclusion.