Congressional staffers hold the keys to Representative doorways, and one of the first steps this week was educating these gatekeepers on WTF we’re talking about. Not the issues at hand per se — yay personal freedom and taxation! — but the logistics of regulating the pokery brand of internet commerce (while protecting players and children, keeping addiction in check, generating tax revenue, etc.).
Joining Annie Duke and PPA Exec. Dir. John Pappas for the panel discussion — attended by some 50 or so congressional staffers — were:
· Dr. Parry Aftab, Executive Director, Wired Safety (www.wiredsafety.org)
· Stuart Dross, Vice President, Cigital (www.cigital.com)
· Paul Mathews, independent consultant, former executive with International Game Technology
A little more info on this 103-million-hand study done by Cigital, from the PPA:
The study, released by Cigital, Inc. in conjunction with PokerStars, used data acquired from 103 million hands of Texas Hold ‘Em played online in December of 2008. According to Cigital’s report, more than 75 percent of the cases saw an outcome determined with no player even seeing more than his/her own cards and the community cards. Nearly 25 percent of the games witnessed a showdown where the cards were revealed to determine the winner, but only half of the showdowns were won by the player who had the best five card hand. The other half of the showdowns were won by someone with an inferior hand because the player with the best hand decided to fold prior to showdown.
Ahh, I was wondering what Cigital was all about, and why and how they were involved — Go PokerStars! But what also jumps out here … those 103 million hands … they all come from DECEMBER 2008 … as in one month! (And from one site!) Surely that has to raise a few political eyebrows, as soon as we can get them to understand the concept of rake.
Our opposition to HB 222 in Texas said pretty clearly that their whole argument relies on the skill vs. luck debate. That, I think, is “good for poker”. Because while Christian Life Coalitions and Texas Eagle Forums continue to bring out the same old “but you could get dealt a 2-3” argument — actually, I guess they changed it a little bit, because in 2007 they were saying 2-2 — they have yet to show one piece of hard evidence backing up this claim that it as chance-based as the lottery or bingo (which, incidentally, are both legal in Texas).
Meanwhile, anyone who looks at the game (courts included) and talks to people who have played it for a mere 20 minutes understand the luck factor in poker is no different than in stocks, real estate, Scrabble, or life. But because there are some people who insist on pressing their moral agenda on the basis of a provably unintelligent argument, a software security company called Cigital just released a study of 103 million poker hands to counter the luck claims of the people who insist on using just two:
http://www.cigital.com/resources/poker/100M-Hand-AnalysisReport.pdf
A synopsis of their findings:
Cigital will release a report outlining a study of 103 million hands of Texas Hold ‘Em, which includes compelling statistics showing the outcomes of the games are largely determined by the players’ decisions rather than chance. The results of this study are of great importance to the legal community, where many cases involving poker come down to the question of whether the game is one of predominant skill or chance. As a game of skill, poker should not be categorized as “gambling” under the law.
