If you play poker long enough hopefully you continue to learn about the game. Once your level of understanding has advanced to an intermediate stage you will start to become familiar with poker terms and theories. One term you may have heard is variance. Variance has roots in mathematics and basically it is your results over a set of hands. I previously wrote about whether or not poker is a game of skill or luck and how it matters in the eyes of the law. How does variance affect poker from a legal standpoint?

The majority of states determine whether an activity is legal based on the predominance test. This test is relatively straight forward; if skill predominates over chance then it will probably be considered a contest of skill. Variance tells us that if you play based on the odds, arguably a skillful way to play, then over time your chip stack or cash will ebb and flow with the variance. If you have more variance compared to a mean then your swings will be more extreme. From a practical standpoint, think about it like this. If you and your opponent both flip your cards and you see he only has three outs then obviously he will only win if he draws to one of those 3 cards. On the turn with three outs he has a 12% chance to win and on the river he is down to 6%. Statistically you are very far ahead.

Now that we know how variance works and we know what the predominance test is we can answer the question. Using variance as a guide, if you always get your money in while you have the best odds and play the hand down to the river, then the majority of the time your hand should win. If the state uses the predominance test to determine legality, applying variance means that by applying your skills to know the odds you should win based on the percentages. Playing based on statistics, chance predominates. Should a legislature sit down and study what variance is and how it applies to poker, then poker should be considered a legal activity based on skill. The real problem of course is that not everyone plays perfect math based poker. Donkeys will still outdraw from time to time; statistically it is bound to happen. These are the most dramatic examples of poker and everyone has a bad beat story. Hopefully legislatures will not seize on bad beat stories to draw inferences and finally legalize online poker.