“The final table of the World Series of Poker’s main event shows, once again, that poker tournaments are games of skill.
Courts have developed tests over the last couple of hundred years to determine whether a particular game is predominantly chance or skill. If courts and prosecutors were honest in applying these tests, at least no-limit Texas hold’em tournaments would have to be considered skill contests and not gambling.
Let’s take a look at the most common tests and what happened on July 18, 2007.
1) A skillful player will win more than an unskillful one. The tournament started 12 days earlier, with 6,358 paying $10,000 each to enter. All the chips that were lost by players went to other players, not the house.
2) Skill can be learned from experience, from real or mock play. Here’s how the Associate Press described the nine players at the final table, in the order in which they were eliminated…”
Poker Player Newspaper (08/06/07)
Poker: The Skill Game 