Case pondering Lady Luck's role in poker ends

LONDON, Jan 17 (Reuters) The owner of a London card club was yesterday found guilty of breaking Britain's gaming act, in a ruling his colleagues called a ''sad day for poker''.

Derek Kelly, owner of the Gutshot private club, had pleaded not guilty to breaking the law on two occasions -- December, 2004 and January, 2005 -- for illegally hosting a poker session and levying winnings and stakes without a licence.

The jury at Snaresbrook Crown Court was asked during the trial whether poker, an increasingly popular pursuit in Britain, was a game of chance, skill or a combination of the two.

Britain's Gambling Act states that a licence is needed for hosting a game of chance but not those of skill, like chess.

On its Web site, the Gambling Commission states: ''Whilst there are different levels of skill amongst poker players, the Gaming Act makes clear that even games of skill and chance combined are games of chance.'' Kelly's legal team argued that the law was unclear, because every game, even chess, involved an element of chance, and so poker should not be discriminated against.

''The fact that poker is predominantly a game of skill over chance means it is a game of skill,'' said Barry Martin, Chief Executive of Gutshot, which boasts 23,000 members.

''Every game has an element of chance, whether it be Scrabble or Monopoly or chess.'' He said Kelly would probably have to pay a fine, and was considering launching an appeal.

''It's a very sad day for poker,'' Martin, who was at the trial, told Reuters by telephone. ''It makes it very difficult to make poker commercially viable.

''It drives all those hard-core poker players into casinos or drives them underground to less desirable places that may be run by criminal or other darker elements.'' He said in order to get a licence allowing poker to be played at Gutshot, the club would have to be a casino, which its owners did not want.

Britain's online gaming sector is in upheaval after the United States effectively banned online gambling last year in a move that wiped billions of pounds (dollars) off the value of Internet gaming companies.

Britain opposes the US ban, but has said it would not protect British gaming executives from US extradition requests if they took bets from countries where they were illegal.

REUTERS PKS BST0458