Many poker players have been waiting for years for the United States Supreme Court to admit the obvious: poker is a skill game. Sure, there is plenty of chance involved too. But to lump poker into the same category as slots and roulette, well, this is pretty ludicrous. So along comes the Lawrence DiCristina case, which gave the Supreme Court a great opportunity to weigh in on the matter. But first, a little background…
Thanks to the Illegal Gambling Business Act, DiCristina was convicted of organizing low stakes poker games at a warehouse in Staten Island, New York. The Illegal Gambling Business Act (IGBA) was passed in 1970 as a means of busting organized crime groups that generated money through casino games. So DiCristina and his legal team set out to show that this outdated law didn’t apply to a skill game like poker.
They were initially successful as a New York U.S. District Court acquitted DiCristina on grounds that his poker business didn’t fall under the IGBA. But this acquittal was later overturned in a U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals. The court of appeals agreed that poker is a skill game, however, they said that DiCristina should still do time for making an unlicensed business out of it.
So now we come to the Supreme Court, which had a chance to give their take. This was a highly anticipated appeals case in the eyes of the poker legal community. But unfortunately, the Supreme Court chose not to hear the case, like so many other appeals that come their way. What’s even more disheartening is that the judges didn’t give a reason why they declined to hear the case.
Is this a huge blow to poker legalization in the United States? Probably not. In fact, one could argue that nothing’s really changed because this Supreme Court deal was more like a shot in the dark. Their ignoring the case only confirms that federal online poker legalization won’t happen simply because a court validates the game. Instead, the fight will continue at the state level, where, hopefully, more and more states will continue to legalize and regulate the game.