Poker: normal and pathological practices

Poker is nowadays one of the most popular gambling types, especially online. One of its main special features is the real component of skill involved in the game outcomes. This entanglement between chance and strategy makes the subject’s relation to chance more complex and contributes to making poker a game apart from other types of gambling. In this article, we focus on the special features of poker and on its practice, pathological or not. The issue of pathological gambling among poker players and its specificities (prevalence, risk factors and characteristics) is then addressed. Finally, we question the player’s relation to chance and the involvement of cognitive distortions, or gambling-related irrational beliefs, in pathological gambling.