[DVaut1]

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A note related to the thread, I'm in agreement with wacki that taking advantage of stupid people is clearly unethical and ought to receive our condemnation, regardless of what kind of 'lessons' the stupid person will learn, or other such Social Darwinism arguments we might be able to create.

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Not to be flip, or to divert the thread; but if one really believes that taking advantage of stupid people is unethical, why play poker?

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No, that's a fair point and not flip; but I'm of the opinion that when you sit down at a poker table, you've consented to the notion that better players (and of course, variance) will part you from your money, if and when you lose.

The unethical part of usury is that the victims typically aren't aware of the predatory terms they're agreeing to, so their consent to the loan is tainted by the fact that they weren't cognizant of the unfair terms they were consenting to -- and I think it becomes particularly unfair when the lender purposefully writes the terms of the deal in a vague or confusing manner (or hides some of the predatory aspects of the deal altogether), knowing that the party accepting the loan is incapable of understanding.

I think the situation becomes a whole lot stickier (and murkier, in terms of the ethics involved) if the party accepting the predatory terms is fully aware they're getting screwed, but accepts the deal anyway out of desperation or depression. Even then, the lender (I think) is still being unethical because they're taking advantage of parties whose ability to think rationally is in question -- and the rationality of both parties integral to the legitimacy of consent.

How then, do we treat situations at the poker table where we know our opponents are behaving irrationally (i.e., they're drunk, or are gambling addicts, etc.)? I don't know.

I certainly have no problem winning money from drunk donks at my local B&M, but then again, that just may mean I'm unethical -- or it's certainly possible I'm wrong on the ethics involved here. I would feel guilty winning money from someone I knew was a gambling addict -- or someone whose wife just left him, and he's spewing chips everywhere because he's depressed. So perhaps I just think drunk people are rational enough to consent to losing money at the poker table -- particularly if my drunk opponents arrived at the table sober, then got drunk during the course of play (indicating they intended to play irrational poker); again though, I'll admit these are complicated situations in regards to the ethical implications involved.

So yeah, it's a good question that I can't easily answer.