Most players know that poker is a game of skill and a court in India also affirmed that this week after an establishment in the state of Uttar Pradesh was denied a gaming license and appealed the ruling.
According to the Times of India, the Allahabad high court not only ruled that authorities should review denying the license but also affirmed poker and other card games utilize skill instead of luck.
“In light of the fact that gambling is prohibited, the permission was denied without going into the aspect that card games, i.e. poker and rummy, are absolutely a game of skill and not gambling,” Justice Shekhar B Saraf and Justice Manjive Shukla noted in their ruling.
Differing Laws & Rulings
Poker takes plenty of skill and strategy, although elements of luck are also involved. The Indian court noted that the rejection of the license “does not address any of the issues and denies the permission for such gaming unit on the basis of surmises and conjectures that there may be possibility of peace and harmony being disrupted.”
This isn’t the first time Indian courts have ruled in favor of poker as a legal pastime. The game is now legal in much of the country.
However, other courts have argued that poker is illegal under the country’s Public Gambling Act of 1867. This has led to differences in laws relating to the game based on in which state a person is located.
That has also been the case for online poker in India, and some states have specifically made online gaming illegal.
“From a legal perspective, everything depends on your local jurisdiction,” PokerScout notes of the country. “India’s laws give individual states the autonomy to introduce their own gambling regulations. In certain ways, the poker situation in India is similar to what Germany and the USA currently have.”
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