Professional Poker Players Are So Worthless To Society................

[PokerProdigy]

Why are people always making posts about how pro's don't help society/people and that this should make them feel bad etc....

I mean don't get me wrong because I am not arguing that professional poker players are extrememly beneficial to society. But what I am saying is that I always here people making these comments about pro poker players. Yet they never make this comment about actors, actresses, musicians, athletes, sales-man/sales-women, accountants, CEO's, etc... Basically, it seems to me that MOST jobs don't really help society any more than pro poker players (unless you see making money for some business top dog as helping society).

[JohnnyHumongous]

If you have studied some economics (or understand utility & value) you will recognize that all those jobs you listed do provide value to our society. The actors and musicians provide entertainment which people purchase- both sides benefit and receive utility. CEOs are hired and paid well because they add value to a company and make it successful. A company is successful because it creates economic surplus- it sells goods or services and creates value.

If there were no pro poker players, people could still play poker. The pros are NOT providing a service. The fish who continue to play would lose less money and some might become profitable. Basically the pros leach value out of the system. Value is NOT created by poker pros and shared between them and others, as it is with all the professions you listed.

[Leonardo]

The above post is largely correct. I believe there is one exception. Tournament play. With the popularity of poker on TV, tournament pros may be adding value. It is very boring to watch complete unknowns playing poker every other week, but if you see some characters over and over again, it can be very entertaining. Pros playing cash games are just leaches. They add no value to society whatsoever. You must ask yourself when looking at one's occupation, if all the people who do that occupation died, would the world be worse off. I think the answer for poker pros is probably no. One last comment. It is possible that they do add value by being something that a lot of people would like to do. If they are winning players, others know it is possible to be a winning player and hence play. If there was no possibility of being a winning player at all, I think the number of players would be significantly lower. So perhaps in some way they do add value. Perhaps.

[Freudian]

It is all about the product that is created. The product poker players provide is jobs for people involved in gambling plus relaxation/entertainment for other poker players (and it goes without saying that some of them provide a poor product while others provide a good product). Might not be a cure for cancer but nothing else is either.

Anyway, this line of thinking is worthless. People can make a living of anything that creates surplus monetary value. I don't care if it is accounting, poker, porn, collecting soda cans or being a police. As long someone isn't forced to do anything they don't want to or is injured doing it I am fine with it.

[Jordan Olsommer]

Casinos provide service to society (people want to be entertained by playing blackjack), so therefore poker players do as well (people want to be entertained by playing poker). Losing poker players are also providing a service to other poker players, except that they voluntarily waive their payment [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Jordan Olsommer]

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Anyway, this line of thinking is worthless. People can make a living of anything that creates surplus monetary value. I don't care if it is accounting, poker, porn, collecting soda cans or being a police. As long someone isn't forced to do anything they don't want to or is injured doing it I am fine with it.

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Exactly - any time you make money doing something other than robbing, stealing, or the like, you are providing a service to someone in some capacity.

[otnemem]

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The actors and musicians provide entertainment which people purchase- both sides benefit and receive utility.

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But you could make your own movies with your own actors, rendering entertainers useless. So essentially, professional actors are not necessary to make movie-going enjoyable.

[Ghazban]

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The actors and musicians provide entertainment which people purchase- both sides benefit and receive utility.

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But you could make your own movies with your own actors, rendering entertainers useless. So essentially, professional actors are not necessary to make movie-going enjoyable.

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As a full time musician and part time poker player, this makes me feel totally useless [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

[jakethebake]

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Why are people always making posts about how pro's don't help society/people and that this should make them feel bad etc....

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I don't know, but if people are "always posting" these then there should be enough ongoing debates without you starting a new one.

[Jim T]

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The actors and musicians provide entertainment which people purchase- both sides benefit and receive utility.

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But you could make your own movies with your own actors, rendering entertainers useless. So essentially, professional actors are not necessary to make movie-going enjoyable.

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If you completely ignore quality, you might have a point. However, as awful as many movies are, "home-made movies" would by and large be exponentially worse.

You are also ignoring opportunity costs.