A jury has been asked to decide a question that has exercised gamblers for centuries: does winning at poker — the world’s most popular card game — hinge on luck or skill?

The verdict, in a landmark legal case, could have a significant impact on the future of the poker industry, which almost dominates late-night satellite television and has an increasing presence online.

The jurors, sitting at Snaresbrook Crown Court in East London, have been asked to decide whether Derek Kelly, chairman of the Gutshot private members’ club in Clerkenwell, Central London, broke the law by hosting a poker game in which a levy was charged on the winnings, and hosting another in which players had to pay a fee to take part.

The Gambling Act states that a licence is needed to host games of chance such as blackjack and roulette, but not games of skill, such as chess and quiz machines.

Central to the prosecution case is the argument that poker is a game of “mixed skill and chance”. The jurors were told that, if they agreed, they should find Mr Kelly guilty on both counts.

Opening the case against Mr Kelly yesterday, Graham Trembath, QC, also warned the jurors that the trial would require a crash course in the notoriously impenetrable jargon used around the poker table. By the end of the hearing, the lawyer said, each juror would know their fish and their flops from their flush and their folds.

Mr Trembath told them: “If I use the following words — a flop, a pair, are you raising?, a blind bet, Texas hold ’em, — do those words or any of them resonate with you or ring any bells? This case is all about poker . . . some of you may know what it is all about, some of you may not.

“Well, I anticipate during the course of this trial you will have, as it were, a free short tuition in what poker is all about, what poker involves, how it works and so on and so forth.”

He added: “The essence of this case may well be . . . and it is your decision and your decision alone: is poker a game of skill or is it a game of chance or is it a game combining skill and chance?” He said the prosecution was making this case because the cards were shuffled before any game of poker began. “We would submit that, once these cards are shuffled, then you have introduced an element, a significant element, of chance,” he said.

Mr Kelly denies both charges of contravening the Gambling Act. The alleged offences, which concern the Texas hold ’em version of poker, took place at the Gutshot on December 7, 2004, and on January 27, 2005. The court was told that when police visited the club on December 7 they saw a levy being charged on the “prize pot”. The prosecution claims that, on that day, the prize pot was £2,165, with the club keeping a cut of £270.

On the January 27 visit, it is alleged, players had been charged £22 to enter a poker game — in other words, to buy chips for cash to play the game, for which they received £20 worth of chips. Mr Trembath argued that the charge effectively allowed the club to retain £2 per head.

The court also heard evidence from Henry Kirkup, an inspector from the Gambling Commission, who said he had visited the Gutshot club on August 3, 2004, at the invitation of Mr Kelly, who gave him a guided tour of the premises.

Zeeshan Dhar, defending Mr Kelly, told the court that, during the visit, the club chairman expressed his views that he did not believe that poker was a game of chance within the meaning of the 1968 Act. “He was saying to you, ‘I want it tested in court’?” Mr Dhar asked Mr Kirkup.

The inspector replied: “Yes.”

Asked for his opinion, Mr Kirkup said: “If there is an element of chance, I am satisfied that it is gaming.”

Mr Dhar added later: “I have pondered the law and the statute and I have not found any reference to poker in the Act.”

The case continues.

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