In the wake of Gordon Brown's groundbreaking decision of July 11th to retract the license for a super casino in Manchester, a project which, incidentally, was a time-consuming and expensive process that would have produced both jobs and investments alike, a battle has been won in Denmark by poker enthusiast Frederik Hostrup Pedersen.
Charged with the crime of hosting illegal gambling games in his homecountry of Denmark, Pedersen was recently acquitted of the allegations on the basis that poker was a game of 'skill'. Taking into account the restricted investment and the influence of an individual's skillset, the Judge ruled that the game of poker wasn't based around luck and simply a form of gambling and thus couldn't be ruled in tandem with current gambling laws.
A pro since 2001, Frederik Hostrup Pedersen learned and mastered his trade from the comfort of his own desktop, but has since entered the live tournament fray, proving he is equally as capable by reaching the final table of the Polish EPT in Warsaw. Currently the Chairman of the Danish Poker Federation, Pedersen is a major and popular figure in Danish poker.
Although enjoying victories in plenty of poker battles previous, this will have been his biggest triumph to date and one which that I'm sure he'll savour for many moons to come. What's more, it's a victory for Europe and one that could not only help influence future skill/luck conflicts in the rest of the continent, but also perhaps in America where a 'skill games' bill is trying to pass congress in order to counteract the appendix to the port security bill that was passed in 2006.