Poker Site Claims Legality in Much of USA

As most players now know, there are no laws strictly prohibiting Americans from playing online poker. So why do so many online poker sites refuse to allow those from the United States from playing on them? The answer is that laws like the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) make it illegal for companies to offer most forms of online gambling to Americans under US law, and – especially after the events of Black Friday last March – many companies have been wary of offering games in the current climate. More recently, individual states have made plans to bring online poker back to their citizens, with Nevada and Delaware leading the way.

But one company believes they’ve come up with a way to legally offer online poker to at most Americans. According to the operators of SkillBet, their games do not violate the laws of at least 28 states, as their version of poker cannot be considered a game of chance – a key provision in determining whether a game is defined as gambling.

If you’re wondering how poker can be played without chance, it does take a somewhat different style of gameplay than your standard poker game. Instead of playing against each other, players participating in one-on-one competitions where they play the same cards from the same position against the same computerized opponents. The deck will play out the same way for the other player as well. The determining factor in deciding a winner is the amount of money the players make or lose from playing those hands. The results of the two players are compared, with the winner taking the difference between their results (up to a predetermined maximum).

This isn’t the first time a game of this type has been tried as an attempt to get around US gambling law. DuplicatePoker had a similar structure in which players played identical hands at different tables in an effort to get the best results from them. That site failed to gain a following and folded, though the duplicate poker concept has been tried in at least one major tournament since then. Many believe that the same fate awaits SkillBet – particularly considering the number of real money online poker sites available to Americans even after Black Friday.