12/04/2011, Poker Tournaments

The Swedish Supreme Court of Justice has finally ruled on the fate of poker in the country. The Court decided that poker is both a game of skill and a game of chance, depending on the format of the game.

The Supreme Court of Justice ruled that the “skill versus luck” argument depends on the kind of the poker game and on the time spent playing.
“We have found that the main tournament and its side tournaments were not random chance games, but that skill does come in to it,” the judge Göran Lamberth told the news agency TT on Wednesday.

However, the Supreme Court ruled that cash games which allow players to play the game and bet when they like, leaving the table at any time, were found to be games “of pure random chance”.
“The cash games constitute games that primarily depend on luck as in the meaning of chapter 16, article 14 of the Criminal Code, while the main tournament and the side tournament (sit and go) do not constitute games of luck,” the court concluded.

Judge Göran Lamberth ruled that tournament poker events require the skill element because of the length of time spent playing and the inability to leave the table whenever you like. On the other hand, the judge classified table games played in casinos as games of chance.

The Supreme Court's ruling represents the end of a long legal battle of six men who were convicted of running a poker tournament at Grebbestad back in 2007.