[smurfitup]

it's sort of sad, but i think a lot of winning poker players consider the source of the money to be irrelevant. of course, this is necessary in a way since many of these players are earning their income from those donations, but the question is nonetheless valid. i'm a college student, but i play to make money for my expenses and because i'm a competitive person. still, when playing live, i often find myself dreading being in a pot w/ a person who seems like a compulsive gambler. maybe it's bad to categorize someone that quickly, but there are certain people at my casino that are there every day and lose consistently. these are the compulsive gamblers that feed a lot of the good games, and these are the types that make me hate playing poker live. playing online is a mixed blessing because the anonymity it provides allows you to forget that you're actually playing a real person. but in the end, when you realize the hundreds of thousands of dollars that are won and lost everyday, you can't help but think that some of the people losing the money can't really afford to lose it and some of them can't really control it.