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Poker Loses Swiss Debate

The chance versus skill debate has really begun to heat up the court rooms all over the world right now and the debate is having mixed results depending on the country. Switzerland’s Supreme Court has just handed down a ruling that poker is a game of chance more than skill – a real blow to the poker gaming enthusiasts who are always ready to avoid the classification of poker as similar to the online casinos. This same issue is taking place in the US courts too as two US citizens argue in the state Supreme Court that poker is a primarily skill based game and again, not like the land and online casino sites – they are surely hoping at this point that the Swiss court’s decision is not an indicator of how the state US Supreme Court judges will rule.

The ruling will severely alter the spread of gambling play in Switzerland because the Supreme Court ruling keeps the game firmly under the jurisdiction of gambling laws in the country. As online casinos spread and internet poker is a phenomenon also spreading strongly, the Swiss ruling will keep the industry under control and controlled by all of the same laws and regulations that prevent chance gaming from spiraling out of control. But the problem for Switzerland is the fact that this could all be too little too late. The Swiss are already accustomed to playing poker in hotels, cafes, and other places – activity that is now illegal since the Supreme Court handed down a chance gambling ruling.

Interestingly, the Swiss situation does not really involve the online casino industry but rather the was action initiated by the Swiss Federation of Casinos to stop the competition of land poker tournaments that were costing the legal gambling venues large sums of revenue. Because these parallel poker tourneys did not have any regulations that were undermining the presence of legal and regulated land gambling in Switzerland according to the Federation and apparently the Supreme Court too.