When a player learns a game by understanding its rules and uses their analytical ability to improve at it, then they are playing a game of skill.
Practice is needed to hone the skills required to win a game. The outcome of the game depends on the skill of the players and not their luck or random generator.
While playing Toss The Card, a players’ skills are the most important factor to win a game.
The capability of calculation, reading your opponent's mind, noticing their pattern of discarding cards and the best use of cards you are dealt with etc. are the skills which decide the winner.
A player who uses his/her skills to complete the objective of the game in a best possible manner is declared as the winner.
Here are the skills that players who play Toss The Card should follow:
Toss the card can have 2 winning hands high and/or low. Each player is dealt 2 cards down. The dealer offers the player to the left a card.
The player can take the card or pass the card to the other play. This continues until a player takes the card. Each player that passes on a card will automatically get a card from the dealer at the end of the round.
This scenario goes until each player gets 3 cards face up. Then each player is dealt another hole card. Then the player must make their best or worst hand with the 6 cards that have been dealt.
The players who choose high must beat all players who decide to go high and players who go low must beat all players who go low.
The skill is that each player can alter the other player's hand by taking or passing a card. Don't forget the object is to win, so by altering a player's hand alter their decision of going high or low.
Each time a player passes the card they must pay a fee. The high and low player split the pot. A player can win the whole pot if they have the only high or low hand.
A skill-based card game is legal under federal law and under the state law in 36 states. The following states will not allow a real-money skill-based card game: Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Indiana, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Tennessee.
Majestic Games has a legal memorandum opinion letter from qualified outside legal counsel that the real-money skill game Toss-the-Card complies with all legal requirements in the jurisdictions in which the developer operates or allows game play.
The developer is Majestic Games, LLC, a Georgia limited liability company (“Developer”). Developer operates a website, where it offers a number of skill-based real-money (and free-to-play) games, including browser-based arcade games and skill card games. This memorandum addresses a card game called Toss-the-Card (“Game”).
The Game allows between three to six real-world players to compete against each other. The objective of the game is to make decisions regarding the cards presented to you - specifically whether to pass or keep them - all in an attempt to make the best or worst hand of the other players. At the end of the rounds, the players can choose whether they will go “high” or “low.” All players choosing “high” compete with the other “high” players for the best hand, while the players choosing “low” compete with the others who chose “low” for the worst hand. If there are players going both “high” and “low” the pot is split between the best and worst hands.
At the beginning of each round, a 52-card deck is shuffled. Each player is dealt the first two cards face down. The player can see their own cards, but not the cards dealt to the other players. One player is designated the “dealer” and is the last to make the decisions. Each round, the dealer button (designating the player who is the dealer) is moved one spot to the left, so that players get the opportunity to be in different decision-making positions throughout the game.
The player directly to the left of the dealer goes first and is offered a card from the deck, which card is dealt face-up and visible to all players. The player then has to make a decision - to either take that card or to pass that card to the player to his or her left. If all players pass, then the player designated “dealer” must take the card, and the other players each get dealt a card from the top of the deck (face up).
If the player decides to pass the card, he or she must contribute an ante of chips to the pot. If the player decides to keep the card, he or she does not have to contribute to the pot. This process continues goes until each player gets 3 cards face up. Then, each player is dealt another card face down. Then the player must make their best or worst hand with the 6 cards (three face up and three face down) that have been dealt. Before the cards are revealed, the player must decide whether they are going “high” - meaning they think that they have the best hand - or “low” - meaning that they think they have the worst hand.
All players who choose “high” are compared against each other and the player with the best hand from the six cards that they have is the winner. Hands are ranked the same as poker, as follows, from best to worst: (1) Royal Flush; (2) Straight Flush; (3) Four of a Kind; (4) Full House; (5) Flush; (6) Straight; (7) Three of a Kind; (8) Two Pair; (9) One Pair; and (10) High Card (with Ace being highest and 2 being lowest).
All players who choose “low” are compared against each other and the player with the worst poker hand from the six cards that they have is the winner. The hand are ranked in the opposite order as stated above, except the “low” best hand is the “low card” If there is both a “high” card and a “low” card winner, they divide the pot. If there is only one winner, they take the entire pot.
The players must use their memory of what cards have been dealt and other players’ actions to make the decision of whether to keep or pass each card offered. By passing or keeping the card, they essentially alter the other player’s hand. Additionally, each player must make a decision at the end of the round whether to go “high” or “low.” The player must make that decision based on skill, specifically based on the cards that are shown face-up with the other players and their own cards. Like any other game of skill (like golf, chess, bowling), a player can certainly play randomly. However, random play cannot result in a winning outcome.
First of all, random decisions whether to pass or keep the card presented will not benefit the player - the decision must be made on existing information and the player’s strategy as to whether they are going for a high or low hand. Second, random decisions about whether to go “high” or “low” will sabotage a player, even if they are consistently dealt the best or worst hand from the initial 2 and final 1 cards. In other words, chance is immaterial and not determinative of the outcome in the Game.