Card Players Sick To The Gut?

By · January 17, 2007 at 9:10 am · No comments · Latest News · Report an error ·
Poker shuffle

As we briefly mentioned yesterday, the owner of the Gutshot Private Members Club in Clerkenwell has been found guilty of violating the 1968 Gaming Act by organising games of poker on the premises without a licence.

Throughout the trial Derek Kelly, the club’s owner, has protested that poker is more a game of skill than one of luck, and should therefore not be treated as a game of chance (like roulette) by the Gaming Act. Mr Kelly’s defence accepted that the game of poker includes an element of luck, as indicated by the shuffling of a pack of cards before a game begins, but pointed out that almost all games and sports are influenced by luck to some degree.

This seems like a fair point to make. Most card games involve the shuffling of cards as an integral part of the game, but not all are treated as games of chance by the Gaming Act. Large numbers of popular spectator sports are also influenced by ungovernable external factors (such as the toss of a coin at the start of a football match, or the vagaries of the weather in a cricket match), and frankly we love them all the more for their unpredictability.

We know from experience that luck plays some part in poker. This was illustrated by Londonist’s very own ‘Editro’ a couple of years ago, when he managed to somehow fluke his way to winning a poker tournament at that very same Gutshot club. Surely no-one in their right mind would put that down to skill, would they?

So where should the line be drawn? How much luck is permissible in a game before it requires a licence to be played in public? There’s probably no clear-cut answer, but at least the courts should rule fairly and consistently on the matter. Unfortunately, at least according to one poker-related news source, it does seem that the ruling in this case could be a tad inconsistent:

Despite persuasive arguments by the defence that some games and pastimes excluded from the Gaming Act are governed arguably by a greater degree of chance and luck than poker is (e.g. cribbage and bridge), and that no game whatsoever is entirely free from a certain element of chance, the jury were presumably unable to disassociate the playing of poker from its image as a casino-based gambling activity.

Having dabbled with various card games ourselves in our various murky pasts, we would also tend to conclude that games such as bridge (for example) are just as luck-based as poker, if not more so – although skill clearly plays a very significant part in both games. And yet are we to expect residential care homes and humble social clubs to be fined for allowing the playing of bridge without a licence? Wouldn’t it now be hypocritical not to do so?

Over the last few years poker has surged in popularity, and there are now thousands of Londoners who regularly play the game as a casual hobby, often for very low (or even non-existent) stakes. Many of them will be worried that this latest court ruling could threaten to criminalize their hobby…

Picture taken from Johnny Blood’s Flickr photostream under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 licence.

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  • http://husk.org/ Paul Mison

    From the linked BBC article: “Mr Kelly was found guilty of two counts of contravening the Gaming Act, because of the poker games he organised and made money from.”

    The key point I take from this is the “made money from” one; if you’re playing a game of poker in your house but you don’t charge entry, I don’t expect the police will suddenly barge in and bang you up. Similarly, pubs that have poker nights for which you don’t have to pay are (probably) ok. It’s clubs that charge to play – like Gutshot – that are in trouble.

    Still, this is bound to go to appeal, and if the law is as inconsistent as you say I’m sure someone will make the right objections.

  • http://www.londonist.com Dave

    I noticed that also, but much of the news and commentry on the ruling seems to focus on the balance between luck and skill – regardless of whether money is being made or not – so I would presume that this factor must have been key to the court’s decision.

    If I had the time, I would read the 1968 Gaming Act to see what it really has to say on the matter. But life is too short for that!

  • eezee1

    This is all about the money… and the scale of what’s been going on at Gutshot.

    If there was a huge 20,000 member cribbage club with thousands of them gathering seven nights a week to play for substantial money stakes then the gaming regulators would have taken exactly the same line.

    It’s totally consistent and the jury came to the only rational conclusion that anyone without a vested interest in poker would come to.

    And if you took away the money angle so that games were just for chips, would anyone turn up? No, of course not. The whole point of it is ‘gambling’. Plain and simple.

    Can’t say I’m sad to see the place go either. All those dodgy wide boys hanging outside 24×7 were starting to stink up Clerkenwell Road.

  • http://www.londonist.com Rob

    “Can’t say I’m sad to see the place go either. All those dodgy wide boys hanging outside 24×7 were starting to stink up Clerkenwell Road.”

    Probably not the best comment to make, seen as a few Londonist writers have frequented the Gutshot on more than one occasion. In fact I used to play at the Gutshot when they employed a grotty room above a pub in Kings Cross.

    There’s a huge mixture of people and personalities who enjoy playing poker and to brand them all ‘dodgy wide boys’ is just daft (I realise you were being facetious but still).

    I’ve sat alongside Clive Sinclair and the Gutshot before….not your average wideboy is he?

    The Gutshot was a genuine attempt to take the card club environment away from the two extremes of ‘dodgy backroom’ or ‘gentrified and elitist gentlemen’s club’ it had been forced to adopt by UK regulation, and I admire Derek’s attempts to try and challenge the hypocritical and outdated gambling laws in the UK.

  • http://www.londonist.com Dave

    “And if you took away the money angle so that games were just for chips, would anyone turn up? No, of course not. The whole point of it is ‘gambling’. Plain and simple.”

    That’s not really the case. Plenty of poker players take part in games for trivial or non-existent stakes. I myself have often played poker just for chips, as it’s a fun way to spend an evening participating in a game that will often challenge one’s playing skills (or lack of).

    To label the whole point of poker as ‘gambling’ merely shows an ignorance of the nature of the game.

  • Colin

    “To label the whole point of poker as ‘gambling’ merely shows an ignorance of the nature of the game.”

    Erm… actually no. That’s the whole point of Gutshot. The place couldn’t exist without that aspect. I don’t think you’ll find many players there taking part for non-existent stakes.

  • Colin

    “To label the whole point of poker as ‘gambling’ merely shows an ignorance of the nature of the game.”

    Erm… actually no. That’s the whole point of Gutshot. The place couldn’t exist without that aspect. I don’t think you’ll find many players there taking part for non-existent stakes.

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