Town of Mt. Pleasant v. Chimento

Town of Mt. Pleasant v. Chimento was a South Carolina case that ruled that while poker was a game of skill, the Dominant Factor Test is not demonstrably a legal standard in South Carolina and thus poker is still subject to the laws related to gambling. The case was later appealed to a higher South Carolina district court where the Judge overturned the trial court's convictions, stating that Dominant Factor Test was the appropriate legal standard and therefore participating in a private home poker game is not illegal, nor is it gambling. The Judge further declared sections of the 207-year-old statute unconstitutionally vague and therefore void. In 2012, the South Carolina Supreme Court upheld the statute and reinstated the convictions of the defendants.^[1]

South Carolina law, specifically Section 16-19-40 ("Unlawful games and betting") of the Code of Laws, originally written in 1802, provides that "any game with cards or dice" played "at any tavern, inn, store ... or in any house used as a place of gaming" is illegal.^[2][3] While this is now being interpreted to mean gambling (betting is mentioned in the statute), a literal reading of the law would mean that games such as Sorry! and Monopoly are technically illegal in South Carolina.^[4][5]