Poker Declared Skill Game by Colorado Court
The good news for poker just keeps on rolling. A jury of 12 Colorado citizens has declared a man innocent of running an illegal gambling operation on the grounds that poker is not gambling. The jury reached the verdict that because poker is a skill game, the defendant Kevin Raley is not guilty. This is a huge win for online poker and poker players from all over the United States.
After positive legislative rulings regarding poker legality in Kentucky regarding poker domain names, and another Pennsylvania court ruling that poker is a skill game, the poker community is feeling giddy. As more and more court cases start establishing a clear tendency of courts and citizens to consider poker a legal skill game, poker players cannot help but be optimistic that the United States government will rethink their stance on poker being deemed illegal.
The UIGEA, which was passed in 2006, may be becoming closer to getting reversed or amended to exclude real money online poker being an ‘illegal online gambling activity’. I have to wonder how many court cases poker players and advocates need to win before our ‘representatives’ in the federal government start to rethink their hard-line stance on online gambling. But for now, things are looking up.
