Is poker an ethical way to make a living?

[EliteNinja]

"Who the hell cares, we're all going to hell anyways."

Agreed.

[XChamp]

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Can you convince me that this Earth does not constitute a zero-sum game?

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Well, is the standard of living, even for the poorest people, better or worse than it was 10,000 years ago? 1,000? 100? 25?

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That doesn't happen if the sun don't shine.

0 sum the Earth aint.

[Little Fishy]

-little fishy

[purnell]

"0 sum the Earth aint."

OK, but why?

[tylerdurden]

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"0 sum the Earth aint."

OK, but why?

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When people work together in a society, even (ESPECIALLY) when there isn't anyone coordinating their efforts (i.e. in a free market), they can accomplish more than the same number of people working in isolation. This is largely because of the effects of specialization, which can enable HUGE increases in productivity.

[Pocket Trips]

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Live B&M poker is like a micro-economy. It is person against person trying to claim a greater share of a limited amount of money.

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This is a bad analogy. In a true economy, people compete but overall society benefits because of increased efficiency made possible by specialization (among other things). In poker wealth is not created, it is transferred. And this is even before we consider the rake/timecharge.

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that is why i called it A MICRO -economy

On an overall level competition between companies is good for society because competition will bring goods and services to the public at a lower cost. However, on a smaller scale it is MUCH better to be the winner of the competition than the loser. Do kmart and walmart executives enjoy a higher standard of living than the people in 3rd world countries? Of course, but i would MUCH rather be in the family of the walmart exec than the kmart exec (ugh i can't beive I am actually saying this about walmart but it is the only example of 2 businesses i could think of off the top of my head where one is clearly dominating the other.)

My point was that just as a company can dominate the competition by being more effecient or cost effective or meeting a consumer demand that other companies are not etc., a professional player dominates his competition over a long peiod of time by making better decisions. This does not make it unethical to be a professional player as long as you play within the rules of the game.

[purnell]

Nice, thanks. I need to do some reading on this subject.

[revots33]

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So, if you consider poker to be unethical and/or does not contribute to society do you believe the same thing about chess? Why or why not?

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Playing poker professionally is definitely not unethical. It is an honest living (if you don't cheat), just like many other professions. However, that doesn't mean the profession contributes to the betterment of society as a whole. It doesn't. And that's ok. If a person can make a living playing poker, I say more power to him. We all need to earn money and support our families. But let's not fool ourselves into thinking that a guy sitting in the basement of the Borgata pushing chips around all day is somehow making a great contribution to the world.

I'd argue that professional chess players don't contribute a whole lot to society either. But that doesn't mean it's an unethical way to make a living.

People probably have more respect for the professional chess player than poker player, because chess is a game of pure skill. People respect great skill, which is why we pay a lot of money to watch athletes play a game more skillfully than most of us could ever dream of. While we on 2+2 know that a winning poker player must have skill as well, it is also a gambling game with an element of luck involved. Thus it will never get the respect of a pure skill game like chess.

[lehighguy]

Is being a lawyer ethical? How about a stock broker (you rip people off)? And insurance salesmen (sell them what they don't need)? A member of the armed forces (you kill people)?

On and on I could go. The better question is: does it matter.

[USGrant]

A point that posters aren't making but is very relevant to the discussion re: the ethics of professional poker is the relationship between the poker pro and the gambling addict. There isn't necessarily a "contract" involved when the addict deposits another $500 from his credit card to chase a $500 loss. They can't control it, even if they conceptually understand the risk and perhaps (or not) their comparative lack of skill for the game. Of course, some gambling addicts become profitable poker players (although, I guess they remain addicts, just ones that earn instead of lose). But many others just crash and burn, go bankrupt and ruin their lives. In this way, poker is no different than craps, blackjack or the track for an addict. The addict can't control the addiction -- the love for the long odds, the self-hating masochistic tilt, the promise of instant wealth -- and the pro player feeds off of it. We've all seen them on the tables, and I'm sure most of us here have been on tilt enough to know what the addict feels. I think you have to keep this in mind when running up against questions of morality/ethics and pro poker. People who see it as unethical think of loan sharks with baseball bats and the card cheat, which of course are a thing of the past for today's game. But the outsider also sees the Poker Pro as an exploiter of the addict (the same way that the casinos and the State lottery systems are exloiters of addiction). I don't think it's unethical to play cards for a living, but I think this site should address the topic of addiction more...but why would they do that when the addict is a source of income for the pros, etc.