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My wife, who is supportive of my poker habit, as no previous hobby has ever been profitable, asked me this morning about the essential value of poker as a profession. She suggested that all jobs have value both as a way to earn money (honorable) and also provide a service or needed function. Doctors, teachers, waitresses, construction workers and ditchdiggers all play an important role in society. Professional poker certainly can earn money to help support their families, but is there value to society beyond this?
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This question has been asked in poker forums for years now. Poker does provide some entertainment value to the players as well as to those who watch the games, and with the increased interest in watching poker on TV, I guess that audience is sizable enough to be considered substantial.
One could easily make the philosophical case that poker is no better and no worse than professional sports, movies, writing novels, or any other form of "entertainment."
Another case could be made that the aggregate economic viability of poker (how many people play, why they play, how much is won or lost) is a valid measure of rational choice in a free society.
I could easily argue that poker falls far below the level of Mother Theresa's work in terms of it's societal worth, but I could argue equally well that Mother Theresa's work was aimed at assisting those who would not have survived without her, and from the perspective of a social Darwinist, her work -- while meretorious -- was ultimately unnecessary. (This paragaph reads like topics assigned to team in a college debating society.)
So choose a value, any value, and apply it as an interrogatory against which poker can be examined. For each value, you'll get wildly differing answers.
From my personal perspective, I see poker as a voluntary association of individuals who enjoy the game, even as some win and others lose. I don't see it as providing any overriding social benefit to society at large, but I don't see that as a necessary mandate. After all, if one is interested in the "greater good," there are myriad ways of doing good works, and there's an entire structure of private charities desingned to facilitate just this sort of thing.
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Lou Krieger
Raise your game with Lou Krieger, author of "Hold'em Excellence: From Beginner to Winner," at Royal Vegas Poker.
http://www.royalvegaspoker.com/lou