[Colonel Kataffy]

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There is *obviously* a difference between +EV and -EV gambling.

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I agree wholeheartedly. For years, over 20, I was a prop in live card rooms in So.Calif. We use to have a statement when people would say, "You gamble for a living?" We use to say, "It ain't gambling if you're skilled enough to win consistently, no matter how little the win might be."

The point being, we have to push hard the aspect of poker being a skill game where ANYONE CAN be winning player if they learn/study the game and apply the proper principles. Poker is NOT gambling... unless you're one of the many "maniacs" who cap preflop with junk and pray they hit. [img]/images/graemlins/mad.gif[/img]

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I know that the law separates games of skill and chance, but doing so makes no sense.

The +EV/-EV thing shouldn't make a difference in any of this. Poker is the same as any casino game. Money flows from the party with -EV to the party with +EV. In poker, the +EV players are just playing the same role as the Casino does in other games. Thus the legal and moral issues are the same. The "ANYONE CAN be a winning" poker player simply isn't true and again doesn't distinguish it from other casino games in any relevant way. Yes, you can say a losing poker player deserves to lose cause he isn't as good as the winning player, but then the same should be said that the losing roulette player deserves to lose because he doesn't know better either.

This is really a question of liberty. People should either be free or not free.