A Guilty Conscience

[MrMoves]

I posed this question in the 'interview' thread, but I thought I'd throw it up in the air for everyone to answer.

I'd really like to know how you guys felt on the matter.


So here it is:

If a winning poker player is causing bankruptcy and depression in opponents by hunting them down, outplaying them, and encouraging them to refill, does that make him a bad person and his actions immorale?

Good question, my answer - No.

I'm a great believer in letting them "learn the hard way".  Bookmakers give their punters free food and drinks, a warm place to bet and watch races via satellite tv.  They don't do it for fun.

I followed a Turkish guy around over the weekend and gutted him on several occasions, he cropped up last night and I took what little he had left then too.  I don't feel guilty, I feel great.  If he can afford to drop a grand here and there, that's his business.  He is the first name I look for when I log on right now.

When I play poker I leave my heart in the drawer.

[snoopy1239]

I guess the question should be this then:

Considering that people are responsible for their own actions, is it still immoral for us to prey on them when they are weak and not in control of their own actions?

-- or is that just the way it goes?

I see some truth in what I KNOW IT quoted:

"Poker players are like vultures, living off the flesh of the weak "

I'm not sure I can deny this. I find people who are weak, and I knock them even further down.

Why do I knock people down even lower?

$ --MONEY-- $

Because I prosper financially.

Boy, when I put it like that it sounds cruel.

However, this isn't a mugging. It's an agreement. If that player agrees to play poker than he automatically puts himself in a position where poeple can knock him down when he loses control.

as I keep hearing these days, 'That's Poker'.

[Royal Flush]

I used to play Rugby and quite often you get yourself into a postion where you are going to knock someone to the ground and possibly hurt them, sometimes seriously.

In normal culture it is a horrible thing to do, not to mention illegal, however its 'part of the game' i guess the same is true in poker.

[jezza777]

Hey snerpy not only is it poker it;s life. If you wnat to be a winner there must be losers . Society goes out of its way to give a hand up to the losers while the winners just get a load of grief for being sucessful.

[acesdazzler]

Well Snoopy that question has opened a can of worms!
Lets put it this way - I am unemployed at the moment and have a wife and two children. Yet i still play online poker everyday (lucily i am winning enough to justify playing) - despite knowing that the financial risks could be serious for me. When i lose i lose and thats that - i don't blame the other players - i have made the decision to play and to gamble so therefore my actions are my fault.
However what i do is play SnG tournaments with low limit entry - £3.60 or £5.50 and occassionally £11 so that should i lose i can afford it (just) - this makes me around 40 - 50 quid a day most days - and keeps me in poker!
I know that should i lose then i may struggle for money - but the very fact that i don't lose very often keeps me playing becuase the belief in my ability is there.
The problem as i see it is that players who can't afford it playing higher limit stakes games are fools - they should stick to what their budget allows - its not about gambling with stupidity - its about gambling within your limits.
Someimes it hurts but i never ever blame my opponents - i play i gamble and if i lose then that is my fault and not yours or any other players.

[madasahatstand]

No-one should feel guioty about the actions that someone else CHOOSES to make. We aren't in a nanny state, thank god, and if someone chooses to make decisions that will hurt them, then that is their choice.


i dont know how to do the cut and paste quotes but ill try

sometimes people make decisons that they dont know are hurting them. this is usually when they have lost self control and are desperate or on their way to being desperate. you could see this debate in another way. although adults make choices for example, using herion. do we blame the user of heroin or the top of the pyramid dealer that makes lots of money from the person who is addicted to the heroin? can someone with such a dependance really take control when they are embroiled in a sub culture of such activity. its the same with gambling. the person should have control but when you get desperate and the only way you can see out of a situation is to get more money, the vicious circle does not allow easy exit and risks are taken.

i do believe we live in a nanny state. i cant open a shop down the road as a poker club or gambling den without getting all sorts of licenses or risking imprisonment. i cant take drugs that humans have been taking from the beginning of time without getting arrested. i cant drink a beer i the street or ill get the jail. im going to have to have an id card cause the government want me to. what a load of baloni.

desperation, dependance, addiction are all human traits (not related to genes) that other people take advantage of. i reckon that the world is too greedy and everything revolves a round money. im going to stop going on now cause im going to depress myself. someone tell me a joke quick!!!!!!!!!!!

mad

[thetank]

Just playing devil's advocate here as it seems most of the responses have dismissed the immorality of poker.
As they all came from poker players they might be somewhat biased so I think I'll try to balance out the debate a little.

Consider this very hypothetical situation.

You have a choice of two games.
At table A sit three millionaires who don't play very well along with a few decent players. You'd stand to make $50 on average by sitting down to play.
At table B sit nine degenerates who play appalingly, you are guaranteed £200 an hour by sitting down, however, you know that they are all playing with borrowed money, have mountains of debt, and if you they lose all their chips have no money to buy food for their kids tomorrow.

One would probably justify choosing table A as by not playing at table B four of the nine guys there will walk away with enough money to keep the baliffs from the door for a while and buy a bit of food for their family. If you do play there, perhaps only two of them will.

If I were to choose table B I'd probably justify it by considering the inevitability of the compulsive gamblers self destructive behaviour and that if their dosh doesn't go to me tonight it'll just go to another player, a bookie or a casino eventually. Why not allow myself to get in on it.

Ok consider another one,

A small, everyone knows everyone, town of population 500. The only form of gambling available is one bookmakers. Some guy, lets call him Dipsy, develops a big gambling problem. It is getting out of control but his friends step in and help. They get the local bookie to agree not to accept any more bets from Dipsy. His phone has barrs placed on it to prevent him calling any out of town bookie, even Mrs. Muggins at the post office has agreed to not accept letters from Dipsy lest he bet by post. With the help of his town Dipsy would probably conquer his affliction with the GG's and be able to responsibly support his family again.
Dipsy asks Tinky Winky to put some bets on for him in exchange for 5%.
Would Tinky be immoral to do this?

Anyone who knows of a problem gambler's habit and helps him feed it shares the responsibility for his illness at least in a small part. If it's a bookie, a casino, a purveyor of scratchcards or indeed a poker room. This includes, in my opinion, the poker players who are aware of the problem. Just because someone else will if you won't, like in the first example situation, makes it no more or less moral than Tinky Winky in the second. If everyone was a mugger and an old lady walked down the street, it would not be ok to snatch her purse just because someone else will if you don't.

Online, more so than in live games, you can't tell those who have a serious destructive habit from those with plenty money just having fun. If you're a winning player who has played online for any length of time then you shouldn't doubt that you have contributed to the ruin of people with an illness who could no longer control what they do.

As for encouraging a guy with a problem by congratulating him when he wins the odd pot with cards he shouldn't have been calling with. That's the equivalent of Tinky Winky approaching Dipsy offering to take his bets instead of the other way round.

Not sure how much of all I have written I believe myself, but I'm certainly sure of one thing. Poker ain't charity work, we're not doing people favours by teaching them lessons (except perhaps in rare specific situations, of which I can think of none)

[madasahatstand]

i dont believe gambling or any addiction is an illness. its a learned behavioural problem. if you get someone with an addiction and change their daily routine and keep them busy away from the addiction this really helps. also if people learn to control their thoughts and thinking, its easier to move waway from addiction because a lot of the time people run on automatic thinking.  deliberate and reasoned thinking can alter decisions and change potentially distructive behaviour.
my fears about saying addiction is an illness is that when people are told they are ill, they dont feel in control and dont take responsibility for their actions. in other words i only did it cause ive got this addiction illness and 'i cant help it'. its a cop out!!

only my thoughts

mad

[thetank]

It is often used as a cop out yes. I think though, big time addicts, can go into frenzys that they have no control over. They need outside assistance to heal.

In the same way that a problem gambler can hastily try to absolve themselves of responsibility for their actions, so can a poker player feeding off them deny having anything to do with it.
We should perhaps recognise that, while not responsible for, we do sometimes contribute to the decline of peoples existence by making the most of their contributions at the table.

If anyones having conscience problems then you can do something positive, like making a donation to a relevant charity which in turn might undo any harm you may/may not have helped come about. The Mental Health Foundation use research and practical projects to help people survive, recover from and prevent mental health problems and they help tackle the stigma attached to mental illness.
The prevention aspect I think is worth a look at for all poker players, even though you may be winning money, problem gambling is not the only potential mental problem that poker can lead to. Tilt is after all, while it lasts, a symptom of a mental problem. Learning to deal with it is invaluable.

I think their website is mentalhealth.org.uk I think it's worth a look whatever side of this debate you stand on. Understanding the condition more cannot do any harm as it's something I'm sure a lot of us come across all the time. Hell, it might even help you get inside a compulsives head to win even more money off them if that's what floats your boat.