Poker outlawed in Wisconsin; A new game in New York

Score one against private poker games and score one for tribal casinos, which are now the only places in Wisconsin where one can legally play poker. As Poker News put it, ” the fact remains even playing poker for pennies against grandma constitutes a crime.” A crowdfunded lawsuit by poker players challenging state law met with a not-unsympathetic but ultimately negative verdict from Judge Richard G. Niess. Saying his “hands are tied” by a 1964 legal precedent, Niess ruled, “I’ve got to say that poker is such a rich topic on so many levels. It’s as much a part of the American fabric, I think, as baseball and apple pie, but having said that, I can’t ignore the law here, and the law unfortunately, to use a poker analogy, is a stacked deck against the plaintiffs here.”

Niess allowed that “poker involves, in the long run, if you look at it in the long run, more skill than chance.” He referred the plaintiffs to either the Legislature or the state Supreme Court. Poker pro Mark Kroon took the ruling like a good sport, saying, “[Niess] was a nice enough guy, tried to let us down easy, but I think there’s just so many ruling against poker that they can’t ignore that.” He conceded that reversing Wisconsin law might be “an impossible task.”

* In a pre-emptive strike at future upstate competition, Resorts World Aqueduct installed the first 60 of an eventual 300 electronic blackjack tables. New Jersey casinos had better hope that there aren’t a lot of people like Brooklyn resident James Fung, who declared, “I like it because I don’t have to travel down to Atlantic City to play.” Expect upstate racinos to hop on the e-blackjack bandwagon. (Slots-only facilities like Resorts World are allowed to offer electronic table games if an element of skill is demonstrably involved.)

* For no good reason, Global Cash Access is changing its brand-tested, self-explanatory name to Everi Holdings. That just rolls off the tongue … not!

* Just when it was least helpful, China devalued ita currency. Whistling past the graveyard, the Monetary Authority of Macao proclaimed, “development towards a world tourism and leisure center through diversifications in industrial structure and visitor sources remains intact.”