Is poker gambling?

[agent_fish]

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Poker is definitely NOT gambling!
If you read more poker books and watch more episodes of WPT/WSOP than the opponents at your table, you will win. Therefore, poker is not gambling.

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David Sklansky disagrees with you. Poker is gambling. You are deciding whether to take or lay odds based on whether or not you think the odds are in your favor (that is, if you think you have the best of it). This comes into play when you are bluffing, calling, or value betting.

[Boris Yeltzen]

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David Sklansky disagrees with you. Poker is gambling. You are deciding whether to take or lay odds based on whether or not you think the odds are in your favor (that is, if you think you have the best of it). This comes into play when you are bluffing, calling, or value betting.

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David who?

[agent_fish]

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[ QUOTE ]
David Sklansky disagrees with you. Poker is gambling. You are deciding whether to take or lay odds based on whether or not you think the odds are in your favor (that is, if you think you have the best of it). This comes into play when you are bluffing, calling, or value betting.

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David who?

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David Sklansky. He's a 2p2er who got 20th in a $10 1000 person mtt on Party. He's goot.

[Trailer]

My oppinion is that it depends on how much you play. If you play with a big enough bank roll, you will never go broke. This is off course if you are a winning player. If you lay 1 to 1 on 10 coin flips, you can win 10, lose 10, or something in between. That would be gamling. But if you play 10000 coin flips. It would not. Because if you add it up, you would have put 10000 buy-ins on the line. But you would not be able to loose all of them. It has to do with statistics. If you play 10 hands where you are a severe favorite you could loose all 10 of them. But if you play 10000 you would win a lot of money. Blackjack is gambling. Because the odds are always against you. So in the long run you will loose, unless you have a edge that is not supposed to be there.

[trentk268]

Looks like you've answered your own question.

[AsH_KeTcHuM]

Poker is gambling first and foremost. We just go out of our way to find edges, and our knowledge and application of that knowledge is what we call our "skill." It is still gambling, we are just in the minority of poker gamblers who study the gambling decisions we make.

[Merovingian]

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A key difference between stocks and poker is that poker is zero sum.

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How about Forex trading then? it is zero sum and is considered to be on the same playing field as stock trading as opposed to gambling.

[jackaaron]

Let's say you had a football team that far outclassed another one. Someone was giving you 2-1 on your money to play that very good team strait up (I don't sports bet, so sorry if I'm getting terms crossed, but what I mean is you bet that the team will win without any spread). You're gambling in this situation. But, based on the information you have, you are highly confident that over time you will make money regardless of a few instances of the dog actually winning the game strait up.

In poker, aren't we essentially doing the same thing? We're pretty much looking for those situations where we're basically getting an advantageous deal? Of course, the higher up you play in skill level, the less often you're going to get these great situations...you have to be EVEN more skillful to look for them.

So, we're gambling, yeah. But, we're actively seeking (if we're a good player) great deals that should make money over the long run. (That's probably more from a cash game perspective, but you get the point.)