The judge states: “…these damages are quintessential gambling losses that are barred for recovery by California public policy.”
I would argue these are not “quintessential gambling losses” because it is quite obvious that there was no gambling, and if there was no gambling then the losses incurred cannot be classified as gambling losses. You are gambling if you play the game on an equal footing with your opponents, which implies uncertainties and probabilities that you have to play against. Once you eliminate the probabilities and replace them with certainties (by virtue of cheating), there is by the very nature of things no longer any gambling involved. If you know you are guaranteed to win, and your opponent is guaranteed to lose a hand, that’s not gambling. If you know exactly when to fold, despite having a very strong hand, that is also not gambling.
I’m not saying this would be a winning argument in court, but it should have definitely been argued that way.
And it should have been enough to prevent the judge from dismissing the case out of hand, so that the plaintiffs would have a shot at proving their claims in court.
It is more than reasonable to conclude that Mike Postle cheated, and it is also obvious that someone must have helped him. These are not far-fetched assumptions and wild accusations, far from it. The fact that the judge chose the easy way out by referring to “California’s strong public policy” is unfortunate, to say the least.
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