Chance vs. Skill
We really need to come up with some objective measures to determine if a game is one of chance or skill. That way we won’t have to leave people hanging for ages while state officials bicker about a game’s legality, as with Bank Shot. The basic test is this: if you can get good at it, it’s a game of skill. If practice is pointless, it’s a game of chance. Can those simple rules be turned into a fair and reasonable objective test?
Maybe you take 15 people and give them the equivalent of 100 plays of the game in order to learn and practice. Then you compare those 15 people against 15 new people over 100 more plays. If the first group consistently outplays the second group, you’ve got yourself a game of skill. If not, it’s a game of chance.
What kind of test would you use to determine if a game is legal or not?
That’s really just half the issue. The next question is what we should do about taxing games like Bank Shot. It isn’t being taxed like a gambling game even though it competes with gambling games. Should we fix that? How might we fix it without lumping it in with Ms. Pac-Man or those claw games?
The Comments
Law Dog says Gambling is defined by three August 7, 2009 at 10:53am
Gambling is defined by three elements, (1) chance, “mostly luck”, (2) consideration, “cost to participate”, and (3) reward, “winning something of value”.
“A game of chance is one in which the winner is determined by mere luck and not by skill; the predominant nature of the game, i.e., skill or chance, determines its classification.” Skill is defined as, “the learned capacity to carry out pre-determined results often with the minimum outlay of time, energy or both.” Indoor Recreation Enterprises, Inc. V. Douglas 194 Neb. 715, 235 N.W.2d 398 (1975), see, also CONtact, Inc. v. State, 212 Neb. 584, 324 N.W.2nd 804 (1982).