He’s taught at Yale, holds an economics doctorate from University of Chicago, and was a professor at France’s INSEAD business school – but today Randal Heeb theorized about backroom poker on Staten Island.
His testimony came during an unusual hearing in Brooklyn federal court centering on the premise that playing poker for money doesn’t really constitute illegal gambling.
Defense attorney Kannan Sundaram was hoping that Heeb’s testimony might help forestall the trial of Lawrence DiChristina, who’s charged with helping run an illegal gambling ring on Staten Island that operated high-stakes poker games attracting players from New York and New Jersey.
Testifying via videophone from Las Vegas, Heeb explained how his analysis of a “vast amount of data” helped him reach the conclusion that poker matches actually are competitions where players rely on technique and ability – unlike gambling games such as sports betting that are determined solely by luck.
“Skill predominates over chance in poker,” Heeb said at the hearing.
To reach this conclusion, Heeb said he relied on his expertise in economics, game theory, and econometrics, and then analyzed “a spectacularly large data set” drawn from 415 million “Texas Hold ‘Em” poker hands played on an online poker web site.
His research showed that “skillful players are overwhelmingly more likely to win…than unskillful players,” Heeb explained.
But poker is quite different than other games considered to be gambling, he said.
“Roulette would be a game of pure chance – there’s no ability to exploit skill in roulette,” Heeb said.
Because of its huge “array of strategic choices,” poker is now the “primary test bed” for researchers studying complex questions about artificial intelligence, Heeb said.
It’s value in tutorials even extends to the classroom, where Heeb says he’s utilized the game to teach graduate students at the Yale School of Management.
Heeb also recounted how he learned the card game at his family’s dining table and now plays in top competitions – explaining his presence in Las Vegas was to be a contestant in a poker championship.
After listening for nearly two hours to the economist’s testimony, Judge Jack Weinstein said although the issues raised in the hearing pose “an interesting question” he declined to throw charges against DiCristina out.
“I think it’s just a question of law,” Weinstein said.
The judge ruled that the gambling trial will proceed as planned on Monday, but invited the defense lawyer and Brooklyn federal prosecutors to submit detailed written arguments on lingering legal disputes in the case.
Defense attorney Sundaram wants to argue that because poker is driven by skill as opposed to “luck-driven” games, it really isn’t barred by the federal Illegal Gambling Business Act.
The judge said he believes that Congress indeed intended that playing poker for money should be included in the gambling-prohibition statute.
“It may be that Congress was embarrassed and put poker in because they were all playing it,” Weinstein said, prompting laughter in the courtroom.
The judge also said that New York state laws prohibiting poker gambling as a business are intended to prevent the Mafia from making money from such card contests – even though he noted that mob-run card games today are commonplace.
Last summer, the feds charged DiChristina and 13 others — including an NYPD detective and two city firefighters — with being members of a ring that operated poker games in four Staten Island locations, where high-rollers played for money on felt-top tables presided over by dealers.
mmaddux@nypost.com