David Walker asked:


You will find some die-hard video poker players in any brick and mortar casino or in any online casino who have done their homework on the game. These players have read every book imaginable on the subject and are often convinced that the only beatable game in the casino is indeed video poker. The players have studied every variation of the game and are convinced it can be beaten regularly for profit. These people will never believe that their game of video poker is anything less than a game determined by skill and they are right.

Just as in online Texas Hold’em games, video poker games are supposed to deal random hands and give the player the opportunity to use what they know to make the most out of the hand they are dealt. These random hands are valid poker hands and then give the player the opportunity to control the outcome of their game.

Critics of video poker will argue that the game is on a RNG (random number generator just like slot machines) and therefore the machine is set, just as slot machines are to payout a certain amount within a certain time. These same critics would like for you to believe that while you play video poker online, you will be given the illusion of being in total control over your hand when in fact, you are not.

These claims are rubbish if you think about it. The reason is clear. Video poker machines are set to pay back a percentage based on “perfect play” or near perfect play. You will of course have a more favourable outcome if you learn how to play the hands you are dealt with properly so you have a chance of beating the machine. This is true of any card game and just like in the online version of Texas Hold’em, you will increase your chances for a favourable outcome if you play like you are supposed to play.

The RNG can play a significant role in your starting hands of course but the same RNG factor plays a role in the new cards you receive when you discard several that you won’t need to make a winning hand. This is one of those games which can be debated all day long as being a game of chance, but ultimately there have been enough books written on the subject to prove it is indeed a game of skill.

roger asked:


Though on the surface it may appear as though the online poker world in the USA is doing the rest of the iGambling world a major favor by leading the fight to have the ban on online gambling lifted, I beg to differ.

First of all, to suggest that winning at poker requires more skill than most other betting games – like speculating on those “too-good-to-be-glue” horses – is not only missing the point altogether, but it also bound to adversely affect the pro-online gambling lobby in the long run, specifically the hundreds upon hundreds of the online casinos and other gaming sites proliferating in cyberspace. (Another dozen or so will have sprung up by the time you finish reading this article.)

The real debate in America, after all, is not whether one game requires skill in order to improve one’s chances of winning, while other games like blackjack, roulette and craps etc. are all about luck and therefore deemed unsafe for Americans. If that were indeed the case, aside from poker, all wagering games like bingo, video poker, keno, sports betting, and lotteries would be banished from the US of A.

Morals, My Assets

Though the American Right would have us believe the argument revolves around ethics, in reality (where most of us live) nothing could be further from the truth, or more hypocritical. American citizens are totally free to enter any licensed land-based casino right now and gamble away everything they bought (on credit) on games based on pure luck like slot machines and video poker. Thus the debate is political in nature – pure and simple – and fueled on by protectionists bent on safeguarding their land-based casino assets, the horse racing industry, and state lottery monopolies.

At the end of the day America will wind up reversing its ban on online gambling. But only after it realizes just how much mega-money it is losing by NOT legalizing, taxing and regulating the online gaming industry, compounded by the insane cost of trying to enforce its futile and blatantly discriminating war on (some) gamblers in order to protect the Caesars, Trumps and other land casinos from good old healthy competition. With the UK and increasingly more EU countries embracing online gambling and inching closer to regulating the industry, Old Europe’s is now showing the Americans a few card tricks they’ve never seen before. When the US finally does wake up and smell the coffers, much will have been long lost to those more enlightened united states across the pond.

Don’t Thank the Banks

The true culprits are the banks and credit card companies whose very business depends on lending out money to ‘customers’ with the hopes (and good luck) that these same ‘customers’ will fall into even deeper debt and subsequently need to borrow more money to purchase more lottery tickets, more cigarettes, more alcohol, and more over and under the counter drugs.

The first step towards building a safer, regulated online gambling industry is not by differentiating between skill and luck-based wagering games, but rather by better regulating the banks. If the banks, credit card companies and other financial institutions would just stop lending people more money than they should – not to mention at exorbitant interest rates – perhaps we’d be getting somewhere.

Cary Clark asked:


Run a quick web search for “Is poker a game of skill?” and you’ll find dozens of sources. This is, of course, a subjective question. But there is also ample evidence to support the proposition that the classic game of poker is unlike many other casino favorites when it comes to the matter of skill, While success at typical casino offerings such as keno and roulette clearly require luck and little more, unique skills and some experience enable talented poker players to be successful even during runs of bad luck.

Great poker pros such as Doyle Brunson, Chris Ferguson, Barry Greenstein and others have years of experience calculating odds and reading their opponents tendencies. And most of these successful pros teach that success at poker is up to 90% skill and only 10% luck. Other knowledgeable estimates put the contribution of skill to success at poker anywhere from 60% to 80%, with luck accounting for the balance.

At www.newscientist.com, the web site for the weekly international science magazine New Scientist, it is clear that answering this question of whether poker is a game of skill with mathematics is difficult if not impossible. New studies, however, do indicate that skill plays a much more significant part in success at poker than was previously thought. Even so, the game is still regulated just like all other games of chance such as keno and roulette.

In Germany, two researchers tracked the play of more than 50,000 players in an attempt to answer the question about skill in poker. After monitoring some 13 hours of online play the researchers determined that skill does indeed lead to greater success in terms of both win/loss percentage and average value of money won or lost. But still the question persists: Is poker a game of skill?

Another study of more than 100 million hands showed that in 75% of the hands the winner was determined before a showdown. This observation again comes down on the side of the argument that skill plays the most important role. Here, one of the players was able to force the other player to fold because of his manipulation of the betting process. Since the actual value of the two hands never came into play, this would seem to be clear evidence of the value of skill in poker. Some experts, most notably the legendary poker pro Amarillo Slim, don’t believe in luck at all.

They believe that, while players may have some streaks where the cards seem to flow in their direction, the skill involved still represents at least 90% of the outcome. Indeed most experts believe that both skill and luck influence the game, but that when playing the same card/player situation over an extended period of time skill and experience will win the vast majority of the time. Again, the people with the most experience continue to call poker a game of skill.

Perhaps the final word on this brief look at whether or not poker is a game of skill should be given to the academics. In Science Daily, an online news source featuring news and articles submitted by universities and other research institutions, Michael DeDonno of Case Western Reserve University writes that the evidence in favor of skill is strong enough to have an effect on the gaming industry as well as on legal cases. His work shows that players with sound strategy and even a basic knowledge about a good poker hand will succeed a vast majority of the time.

While most seem to agree that skill plays a bigger part in success at poker than luck, the question of whether poker is a game of skill will continue to be debated wherever players gather. Your best option is simply to play this great game long enough so that you can feel competent enough to answer the question yourself.