It turns out laws are ambiguous and sometimes it's hard to tell what the outcome of a judgment will be in advance (until judges actually interpret the law and m

It turns out laws are ambiguous and sometimes it's hard to tell what the outcome of a judgment will be in advance (until judges actually interpret the law and make the call.) It can be hard to even tell which specific laws apply to the case. So, yes, 'probably' is how the law works, if you don't have solid precedents. ('Probably' could also just mean that there is solid precedent but the author themselves didn't do the research to figure it out. Legal research is a lot of work. It's, like, an actual job to do that sort of thing.)