The ongoing appellate case in United States v. Lawrence Dicristina, where semi-private poker game organizer Dicristina was acquitted on gambling charges, has seen numerous pro-poker amicus curiae briefs filed in support of Dicristina’s and poker’s interests in recent weeks.
Recent amicus (“friend of the court”) briefs have been filed by the Poker Players Alliance, by poker historian and author James McManus, and by a group of elite poker pros comprised of Mike Sexton, Greg Raymer, Jonathan Little and Vanessa Selbst.
In the original trial, Eastern District of New York federal judge Jack Weinstein ruled that Dicristina’s small, semi-private game in a Staten Island, NY warehouse could not be considered as gambling. EDNY authorities brought the case under the Illegal Gambling Business Act (IGBA), alleging that poker was indeed gambling.
The two main arguments put forth in the multiple briefs are that poker is demonstrably a game of skill—as affirmed by Weinstein in his initial ruling—and that the IGBA quite deliberately omitted poker from its list of prohibited gambling activities.
The PPA brief reasserts its earlier position that poker is a game of skill, and that poker is not included under the IGBA statute, which specifically included several forms of sportsbetting and rackets-based activities, along with house-banked “casino” games including slots, roulette and dice games.
McManus’s lengthy brief, in a complimentary fashion, provides a detailed political history lesson involving poker asserting that poker’s omission from the 1970 IGBA had to be intentional, based on the game’s prominence in American culture.
That assertion runs contrary to the claims by EDNY Department of Justice attorneys, who in their appeal have continued an attempt to stretch the statute to cover poker despite the game never being mentioned in IGBA’s statutory text.
A third amici brief, filed by Sexton, Raymer, Little and Selbst, argues that “poker is qualitatively more skilled than gambling games.” Arguments put forward in this brief include math skills, observing and manipulating one’s opponents, and the need to vary game strategies.
Other briefs filed to date in support of Dicristina include one by Robert Hannum, a Professor of Risk Analysis and Gaming at the University of Denver who previously assisted pro-poker interests in a Colorado court case.
Another brief has been filed by Chamath Palihapitiya, a poker-playing investor who founded Social+Capital Partnership, a successful venture fund. Palihaptiya argues that successful poker and investment skills are similar and interrelated.
Former United States Attorneys Roscoe C. Howard, Jr. and Robert J. Cleary also filed a brief that asserts that the government’s attempt to tie poker to organized-crime activities is unsupported by law.
Yet another brief, filed by expert Scrabble ® and bridge players Joe Edley, Jesse Day and Martin Fleisher, compares poker’s “skill” aspects to those games, in which cash prizes are also awarded without adverse consequence.
A group of 14 self-described “amateur” poker players from New York is also party to a brief assembled by PPA board member and attorney Patrick Fleming, in which extensive rules of the game demonstrating poker’s skillful nature are assembled. Among the texts referenced are The Rules of Poker, by Sheree Bykofsky and the late Lou Krieger.
No date for an appellate decision in United States v. Dicristina has been set.
