South Carolina Court Holds That Texas Hold 'Em Is A Game of Skill

In October, the Court of Common Pleas of Charleston County, S.C., in Chimento v. Town of Mount Pleasant, No. 2009-CP-10-001551, ruled that poker is a game of skill that does not fall within the state's anti-gambling statute and found that the statute is unconstitutionally overbroad, with the "potential to make criminals of virtually every man, woman, and child in the State of South Carolina."

The defendants were arrested in a private home that housed a weekly Texas Hold 'Em tournament. They were charged with violating a state statute that bans "any game with cards" played in a "house used as a place of gaming." Based on testimony by Michael Sexton, a World Poker Tour player and Robert Hannum, a statistics professor at the University of Denver, the court found that the residence was not a place of gaming because Texas Hold 'Em is a game of skill.

"A more skilled player will consistently beat a less skilled player," wrote Judge R. Markley Dennis, Jr., "and a player's skill can be improved over time through study and practice." He concluded that "reasoning and deductive skills" are more important to a poker player's success than the cards that are dealt.

The court also found that the South Carolina statute is unconstitutionally vague because it bars "any game played with cards or dice" in a variety of locations. This prohibition, he wrote, would apply to a family playing "Go Fish" while waiting for a table at a restaurant or to a youth group playing board games at a church picnic. Applying the severability doctrine, the court declared that statutory phrase void, leaving intact those provisions than ban specific activities such as slot machines or faro.

In late December, South Carolina's Attorney General, Henry McMaster, announced that he would appeal Judge Dennis' ruling to the state's Supreme Court, bypassing the intermediate court of appeals.