[4thstreetpete]

I learned a long time ago that a casino is a business just like anywhere else. I was young and naive then but I hated the politics that were involved there. I worked at a few places and most were generally enjoyable but I worked for one owner who was a total ass and would take dealer's tip money and would fire you on the spot if the dealer was losing money for the casino.

Nonetheless, players who dump a lot of money were ALWAYS welcome. But despite all this we actually had a few people there with lots of integrity.

I remember one time a high roller came in who was generally a nice guy. He gave lots of tips to the dealers and was just fun to be around. This day however he was drinking quite a bit and was losing a boatload. One of my pitboss (some young asian kid) heard what was going on and had the dealer stop dealing to him, helped him cashed out the rest of his chips that he had left and paid for his taxi to take him home to make sure he was ok.

I also remember stories when I was dealing and we had our regulars who come in. There was one lady who fell asleep on my table. [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img] some people just don't know when to quit. Saw her everyday grinding it out for a few dollars a day.

Anyways thank god I got out of there and went to work at some better establishments. Worked a few decent venues after that and generally had a lot of fun.

I guess I know first hand how gambling can ruin some people. I have a relative who owns a chain of restaurants in New Orleans and was basically a multimillionaire. His family came to our house one day and I remember opening the door and this stunning perfect 10 supermodel greeted us. Turned out it was his wife. They had a huge house, nice kids, a nice collection of vintage cars.

I just found out last year that apparantly his wife along with his mother amassed an insane amount of gambling debts and they lost everything. They would hit the casino everyday and it didn't take them all that long. Lost the house, the cars and are filled with debts from creditors, etc. She soon left him and the kids and now he has nothing left. He contemplated suicide for a while. It's a complete mess. It's stuff like this that makes my family so against any form of gambling whatsoever.

Lately I've been thinking about this a lot. Are we as poker players any more different than what these people are doing? Would you consider poker gambling? Sure you can say we're winning players and that we are not like 'them' because we're responsible with our money. But when it comes right down to it, aren't we still gambling. I'm sure lots of people are having their lives ruined by playing online poker.

A few years ago I would've never felt this way. Now I guess I've matured a bit and just did some soul searching. I mean, I think most if not all 2+2 players here are winning players, and I'm thinking of the money that I've won and it's a very big sum. All this money has to come from somewhere, and don't forget to mention the rake which is astronomical.
Basically there's too many people online who are losing their shirts. This is the first time that I've ever felt this way, that what I'm doing is bad for the soul.