Measuring Skill in More-Person Games with Applications to Poker

Abstract

In several jurisdictions, commercially exploiting a game of chance (rather than skill) is subject to a licensing regime. It is obvious that roulette is a game of chance and chess a game of skill, but the law does not provide a precise description of where the boundary between the two classes is drawn. We build upon the framework of Borm and Van der Genugten (2001) and Dreef et al. (2004) and propose a modification of the skill concept for more-person games. We apply our new skill measure to a simplified version of poker called Straight Poker and conclude that this game should be classified as a game of skill.games of chance;games of skill;poker