By John Grochowski
The debate has long raged between a couple of video poker regulars.“Video poker is a game of skill,” says one. “If I play enough, and play well enough, the percentages are going to hold up, and I’m going to make money at the game.”
May 02, 2009 These results, many maintained, showed that poker is a game of skill for the chance element (the cards actually dealt) played a vanishingly small role in the typical hand. While this is certainly one conclusion that can be drawn from these data, it is, unfortunately, not a logically necessary one. Mar 26, 2015 The reasoning is simple enough: if chance dominates skill then poker is a game of chance, and if skill dominates chance then poker is a game of skill. Apr 10, 2019 Learn More Poker Tips Today. Is poker a game of skill or luck? There is a bit of luck and randomness but at the end of the day, winning relies heavily on strategy and a good poker face. To win the games, you need good poker skills to ensure that you’re one step ahead from your opponents.
Not so fast, says the other. “This is still gambling, and at gambling there are no guarantees. A bad streak of luck, and there goes your profit.”
Answers the first, “There will be bad streaks. But there also will be hot streaks when I win more than expected. In the long run, that will balance out and the percentages will hold up.”
And so on, back to square one, with neither budging.
Video poker aficionados know that there are certain games in which a skilled player can gain a mathematical edge over the casino. That’s a rarity among casino players. The best blackjack card counters, the best dice controllers at craps, the best poker players, the best sports and horse racing bettors --- those are the few who actually make money at casino games.
To that number you can add the best video poker players. Making money at video poker requires knowledge, skill and bankroll. Players must have the knowledge to recognize the best video poker pay tables. If you see a full-pay Deuces Wild pay table, that’s a game that returns 100.8 percent with expert play, but there are dozens of Deuces Wild pay tables that return less than 100 percent --- some far less.
Same deal with Double Bonus Poker. If you see it with its full 10-7-5 pay table, meaning full houses pay 10-for-1, flushes 7-for-1 and straights 5-for-1, you know you have a game that returns 100.17 percent with expert play. But if any of those payoffs is reduced, the game drops below 100 percent --- all the way to 93.8 percent on a truly awful 8-5-4 game. If you see the reduced pay tables and you’re out to get an edge on the games, you have to have the discipline to walk away.
You also have to have the skill to make the best mathematical plays on every hand. That’s harder than it sounds. Dealt Jack of hearts, 3 of spades, 7 of hearts, Queen of clubs, 9 of hearts in 10-7-5 Double Bonus Poker, what would you do? If you didn’t answer “Hold the Jack, 9 and 7,” you’re not ready to play at expert level. And there are dozens of such plays in any video poker game that separate the profit-makers from those who help pay for the chandeliers.
Bankroll? Well, you’d better have enough to withstand the inevitable losing streaks. If you don’t, you risk not getting to that theoretical long run where everything balances out and the percentages hold up. Even knowledgeable, skilled players start with a basic disadvantage: The casino has more money than they do. Casinos can afford to wait out any streaks in which players are making money. Can the player afford to wait out the losing streaks? If not, he or she will have to get lucky early to stay in the game.
But let’s say we have a player who has it all together. He or she can recognize beatable games, and is disciplined enough to stay away from the near misses, let alone the bad one. Our player knows expert strategy, and has enough bankroll that staying in action won’t be a problem.
Is that player guaranteed to make money?
Almost, but not quite. Chance does still play a big factor.
Let’s take full-pay Double Bonus Poker as an example. With expert play in that game, royal flushes occur an average of once per 48,084 hands, and account for 1.67 percent of our overall return. In a session in which you don’t get a royal, you’re not playing a 100.17 percent game; you’re playing a 98.5 percent game. Even at expert level, you’re a contributer to the casino cause in that session.
Does that mean that once you’ve played 48,084 hands, you’re certain to have a royal flush? No, of course not. Sometimes you’ll have two royals, or three in that time. Sometimes you’ll have none. If it’s none, your bankroll will take a hit.
What if you double the total, to 96,168 hands --- about 120 hours of play for a fast player, and about 190 hours of play for a player at average speed. Then are you guaranteed to have a royal? The answer is still “No.” The most likely result is that you’ll have two royals in that time. But fairly often you’ll have one, or three, and a little less often, zero, or four.
If you’ve gone 96,168 hands without a royal, does the video poker machine then go into make-up mode, so that it catches up to the expected long-term probabilities? The answer is still “no.” There is no make-up mode. The machine’s random number generator just keeps on generating hands with the same force of probability that has been in effect all along.
For a player who has had a long stretch without a royal, the most likely scenario over the next 96,000 hands or so is that winning hands will turn up in something very close to their expected proportions. The expert player will get about the 100.17 percent theoretical return on 10-7-5 Double Bonus Poker.
In the super long run, the long royal-less stretch fades away into statistical insignificance. There are likely to be royal-rich runs to go with the droughts, and the overall results will hover somewhere close to the expected percentage.
Does that guarantee profits for our expert? Not quite. In any realistic number of hands for one player at Double Bonus Poker, the majority of those playing at expert level will hover around 100.17 percent, some will win a bit more, some will win a bit less, and a few will even drop below the 100-percent level. Skill or not, chance is still with us --- or against us.
Skill matters, and the skilled player sticking to the best games is likely to make money, given enough play. But guaranteed? No way. This is still gambling.
John is the author of six books on casino games, including 'The Slot Machine Answer Book.' You can find more of his work at CasinoAnswerMan.com
This question is at the epicenter of a long debate about online poker. If poker is luck, then it will fall under the gambling laws. If poker is a game of skill, then such casino laws cannot regulate the game.
It seems that there are strong proponents for each view, creating a lively discussion on the Internet. This can have serious consequences as some people and companies may have to pay big fines if convicted of breaking gambling laws.
According to lawyer Jeff Philips, 'the issue of whether skill or chance is the dominant factor in the game of poker has never been litigated with the presentation of evidence in the U.S.'
Such legal issue depends on the State or country laws and definitions of gaming and gambling so that there may never be a universal answer.
Arguments supporting Skill in Poker
Annie Duke makes a very interesting comment about skill in poker in her blog. She argues that it is possible to voluntarily lose at poker. Check-folding every hand is a strategy that is guaranteed to lose consistently.
The point is that it is impossible to lose on purpose at a game of pure chance. If you play a simple game of dice with two players, one player wins each time an even number comes up and the other player likewise for odd numbers. There is no way to lose on purpose, as luck is the only factor that can determine the loser (assuming fair dice).
This is a simple proof that poker is not a game of pure luck as the actions taken by the players have a real impact, unlike pure gambling games where their actions have no impact other than introducing additional randomness into the outcome.
Another salient comment comes from a blog post by silentarchimedes who argues that there are a lot of similarities between poker and stock investing.
In economics, speculation is the villain and investing the hero. Speculation is associated with gambling and is considered to be a non-productive activity, sometimes nearly harmful to the economy. Whereas investing is a noble endeavor requiring skill and intelligence and serving a high purpose, i.e. better capital allocation into the economy.
But how much gambling and how much skill is there for the average Joe when it comes to stock investing? The financial events of 2008 demonstrate that there was a tremendous amount of gambling involved in stock investing in recent years. Similarly to poker, stock investing involves both luck and skill.
Is Poker About Luck Or Skill Game
Another simple argument is to observe that there are thousands of professional poker players. It is true that most are young and cannot attest of the long-term viability of poker as their only source of income. But take someone like Doyle Brunson who has been living off poker exclusively for the past five decades. Was he lucky fifty years in a row?
Another argument was developed by a Dutch Professor of Statistics who created a scale to rank games depending on how muck luck or skill is involved in every specific game.
His formula is skill = learning effect / (learning effect + chance effect), where learning effect is the difference between an optimum player and a beginner. Based on this scale from zero to one, poker scores 0.4 and ranks at the same level as chess.
And by the way, have you ever met a professional roulette player?
Is poker a luck game?
This question of skill or luck could add or withdraw billions of dollars in revenue to the online gambling industry. As games of skill are considered proper by US laws, whereas gambling is prohibited. More importantly it could jeopardize the hobby of millions of American players.
If you have not yet done so, join the Poker Players Alliance, which represents all poker players. It lobbies Congress intensely to pass the message that poker depends mostly on skill. If you play poker, please join this organization that fights for our rights.
Three recent court decisions may have a profound effect on the skill luck debate. And by the way it does not matter if this is Fixed Limit Hold'em, No Limit Hold'em, Pot Limit Omaha or Stud, all these poker variations are very similar as far as the skill and luck balance is concerned.
A much talked about ruling in Pennsylvania determined that poker is a game of skill in deciding about gambling charges against a home poker room. The judge used 4 criteria to dismiss the charges: if data is available to make an informed choice; if players can exercise skill in the game; if skill sufficiently governs the outcome; and if the players understand how skill affects the outcome.
This is the first case where the judge looked at recent studies and arguments such as the ones mentioned in the previous section. And this is the first case where Texas Hold'em is considered a game where skill predominates over chance. Therefore it is not considered 'gambling' under Pennsylvania law (and many other States as well).
The second ruling happened in Kentucky where the Court of Appeals rejected the State?s attempted closure of 141 Internet domain names. Many of them were poker portals. This decision has been appealed to the State Supreme Court.
A third ruling is debated in February 2009 in South Carolina, but the Judge Larry Duffy has already declared that he had determined that Texas Hold'em was a game of skill. A strong argument was made by famous poker player and WPT commentator Mike Sexton who was brought to testify by the Poker Players Alliance.
Another important development is of course the election of President Barack Obama, himself a poker player. He has ordered to freeze all last minute laws from the Bush Administration, including the ratification of the infamous UIGEA. For reference, we discuss the UIGEA in more details in our article about poker legality.
It seems that the scale of justice is starting to tilt in the right direction. Or course Texas Hold'em Poker is a game of skill. Every article in this website (and we have now more than one hundred) demonstrates that, does it not?
In my humble opinion, online poker has been such a success because it is a perfect blend between skill and luck. If if were too much skill, it would be like chess and there would be no fish who think they are good, although they are lucky instead. If it were too much luck, it would be more like roulette with no professional players.
Is Poker About Luck Or Skill 3
If you are new to poker and not certain that it is a game of skill, it is perfectly normal. This is exactly the type of question you should ask yourself. The best way to know the answer is to play and study poker.