On people who play poker for a living

[BruinEric]

[ QUOTE ]

What does Disneyland contribute to society?

What does Mattel contribute to society?

[/ QUOTE ]

FWIW, Mattel and Disneyland are different than an individual "Pro" Poker player in many ways. One of which would be that each employs thousands of people who use the money they earn there to feed their families, maintain health insurance, and save for retirement.

Furthermore, in correlation to some of the others' points on this thread; both Mattel and Disneyland take raw materials (plastic, ideas, stories) and increase their value through their employees efforts.

I am not making points in this thread to support the original post, but I'm not confident in the correlation between these corporations and an individual poker player.

[TomCollins]

If you want to contribute to society, that's your business. But some of us honestly dont care one bit about "giving back to society."

[dogmeat]

Poker is my job.

I play to earn money for my family.

They are the ones that benefit from my hard work.

I have no problem with this.

Dogmeat [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]

[paperboyNC]

[ QUOTE ]
I fail to see any way in which poker playing hurts the economy. If anything, it just adds an extra layer of taxation (taxed when I win, and when I spend), which just helps our country and economy even more. Since most losers can't claim gambling losses, but pay taxes on gambling winnings, the government loves it when people play poker. It's a no lose situation for them. They collect revenue that doesn't waste any resources.

[/ QUOTE ]

The wasted resource is the time of the professional poker player. Us professional poker players could instead make a product like cell phones or flat screen TVs. It's our brains and time that is the wasted resource.

[BlackRain]

OK. I am going to attempt to refute this without degrading comments to the OP. He simply stated an argument. You can agree or disagree. Some of the nonsense in this thread...

While contributing to the "greater good" is and should be a praiseworthy ideal, I think current Capitalist economic models also talk about entreprenurial talent and working hard to get ahead. In fact I think we largely believe that this is the ideal and the greater good is secondary.

As a professional poker player you are essentially running your own small business. Furthermore, you have worked hard (i.e. studied books, mathematical probabilities) endlessly to improve your game and make your business a success.

We don't chastise the small business owner who makes a killing importing cheap computer products from China only to
resell them at outrageously higher prices here. How is he any less of a leech than a professional poker player? What greater good is he contributing to?

The OP mentions the suffering of children who go without vacations and christmas presents because they're father has gambled all his extra money away. Does the small business owner here care about the child slave labour in China making his computer parts?

On the contrary though, he is a self made man, society has great respect for him. There are many other examples of professions that do more harm than good in our society (i.e., tobacco companies). I think it follows that we shouldn't single out the professional poker player and throw blame upon him. He is a success to the extent of how our society judges success. It follows that he should command the same respect as any other working man or woman.

[Toddster18]

George Lucas and Lucasfilms LTD recently took out more than $50 million from the American economy in one day. Did it do anyone in society any "good"? No. But they paid for it.

Poker players pay taxes (or should) on their winnings, and contribute in that way. Furthermore, just as any non social-worker (business owner, etc...) does, they kick back money to the community every time they purchase something, etc...

Welcome to capitalism. Or poker. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

-Todd

[omahahahaha]

Ya, hmmm, let me think about that. I could play poker, making lots of money to provide better food, better shelter, better and safer transportation, all the while having a more flexible schedule enabling me to have more quality time with my family .......OR.........

....I could work a "noble" job for chit pay that drains me of my time, energy, and family time, all the while severely limiting most monetary items MY FAMILY may need in order to
...ahem.. MAKE SOMEONE ELSE'S LIFE BETTER?


as I said earlier, Let me think about that and I'll get back to you.

[bluffski]

Anyone who has an income contributes to society thru spending their income. Product and service industries both are helped by people who are spending money on their products and services. Therefore, poker players do contribute to their society.

[Bigwig]

[ QUOTE ]
I'll cross post this cause it's kind of cross-topic.

As poker players, we don't earn our money. A lot of kids don't get to go extra vacations or they get cheap birthday presents because their fathers or mothers gamble away healthy sums of money. We can justify it to ourselves by saying that people choose to put their money on the table, that they can walk away any time, that they would have just lost it at blackjack etc. etc., there's no denying that if every poker player on earth were to die instantly, nothing would really be worse off. Maybe some slight entertainment value, and a few casino employees would be out of business. Truthfully though, casino employees aren't the most specialized in their skills (say, relative to aeronautical engineers) and thus are capable of finding other work in a variety of fields.

We suck money out of the economy and don't really provide anything in return. We take take and take and nobody really benefits from our existence. We are the sewers of the economy.

For some reason, I think of those who derive their sole income from the poker industry. Anyone who fits into this category feel free to respond.

Do you have a job in which you provide some benefit to someone in exchange for your income (engineer, lawyer, busboy, anything, manufacture fake dog [censored], anything)

Do you volunteer in the community?

Is money and comfort the only thing you care about? Does every decision you make first require EV calculations?

What do you do to make someone else's experience this planet better off?

For some reason, I think about a lot of the people on this forum really can't answer this, but I also think there's a good chance I'll be proven wrong.

I direct this mainly at the "name-brand" players; it's also been posted in OOT.

[/ QUOTE ]

You really don't understand economics.

At all.

[Triumph36]

This is incidental. You either have an income or you die or starvation. The argument is that while poker players have an income, it is based solely on the income of others and contributes no 'product'. This is why the small business argument fails.