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No Luck of the Dutch
by:Webmaster
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Although the Danes have declared poker a game of skill this year, the Dutch did not follow suit as Dutch politicians insist that poker is a game of luck.
In the late summer, a Dutch professor for mathematics, Ben van der Genugten in association with his colleagues, published a formula comparing the ratios of luck to skill in a variety of games.
Their results showed that poker had a massively high skill factor, and that classifying the game as one of luck was not correct. In detail, the formula is: Skill = learning effect / (learning effect + luck effect). The learning effect was defined as the difference between a beginner’s poker skills with those of a pro player. Games that completely depended on luck had a learning effect of 0, while games with an increased skill factor obviously had a higher learning effect.
After in-depth studies and tests with willing poker players, the professors came to the conclusion of a 0.3 factor for poker. To put that in perspective, the professors gave chess a learning effect factor of 0.4.
But politicians simply ignored the scientific findings. People anticipated the reaction of the politicians concerning the formula. But Ernst Hirsch Ballin, the Dutch Minister of Justice, spoke up and said that the Netherlands wouldn’t entertain bringing the conclusions to the highest court of justice. Plus, he cited a study from the University Twente, where it said that poker inherently had increased addiction potential. Because of this, the status quo would be maintained and, for player protection, no open licensing will be pursued and their focus would go squarely on the government crackdown on online poker rooms, who, according to the Minister, offer illegal services.
Poker rooms, of course, disagree and they refer to the Roman Contracts, in which a company can offer services throughout the European Union if it has a licence to operate in one of the member states. But in the end, it’s not the political task to decide which topics are put before a court; only to draw up the laws, but not ultimately decide if they are valid or not.
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