The morality of getting information from the card room manager

[AMT]

I didnt really know what to title this thread, but after re-reading barry greensteins "Ace on the River" and discussing with a fellow 2+2er, a question popped into my head that i couldn't seem to come to a conclusion on, and neither could others after heavy deliberation and lots of pot, so i take it to the forums:


Is it moral to have an agreement with the card room manager/floor person/what have you to notify you when your regular games are juicy or dead, and when he can hope to have a game together, and other pertinent information that others are not openly privileged to (assume that there is/will be an unspoken understanding of tipping or compensation for efforts) ?

Id like to see some discussion on this, i do not think its a simple yes or no answer. i will share my thoughts within the conversation.

[BluffTHIS!]

The standard here is are you taking unfair advantage? From the parameters given I would say no, because confidential info isn't being given to you that others are entitled to, or have a right to be held confidential except to persons on the premises. You are just getting info via the phone/text message, etc., that anyone hanging around the poker room would have. And your tipping for the info doesn't change that.

Also even if your manager buddy had an exclusive arrangement with you and thus didn't offer the same service to other players, whether for extra compensation or not, the bottom line is that they are both not entitled to such service, nor to your being denied such service. They are perfectly free to hang around the poker room all day and wait for good games, or to pay some other knowledgeable 3rd party/player for the same info you are getting from a house employee.

In the overall scheme of things and all the ethical issues that can come up in poker, this issue is pretty trivial.

[AMT]

[ QUOTE ]
In the overall scheme of things and all the ethical issues that can come up in poker, this issue is pretty trivial.

[/ QUOTE ]


I agree in theory but I dont necessarily agree that this is the case in practice. I feel that there are moral issues that could certainly arise from promoting this type of relationship between card room staff and players. i dont disagree with your point of view as a whole, i was simply posing a question that I thought may promote interesting discussion.

[Josem]

i think that having long-term employment relationships (where you reguarly pay a casino employee for stuff they perform) paves the road to a whole lot of seriously unethical situations.


while in itself it is not nessecarily corrupt, it has the potential to be seen that way down the end.



what happens if this bloke happens to be dealing in a game you play? what happens if he makes a mistake in your favour?


ongoing, off-the-book, relationships between staff and the customers of a institutional which engages in a large number of financial transactions are bad.

[arahant]

Firstly, I find discussion of 'morals' in poker sort of silly. You want to take the drunk/addict/retard's money, and you're asking if it's immoral to be notified when he arrives?

But if you find poker moral, I think you'd have to find this moral. It's not disallowed by the rules (although the floorman may be breaking a rule), everyone has the same access you do (assuming no nepotism, i guess)....what else is there?

And I wouldn't tip specifically for a floorman telling me when they hope to get a game going. If they didn't give me their best guess as a matter of business, I'd play elsewhere.

[AMT]

[ QUOTE ]
Firstly, I find discussion of 'morals' in poker sort of silly. You want to take the drunk/addict/retard's money, and you're asking if it's immoral to be notified when he arrives?

But if you find poker moral, I think you'd have to find this moral. It's not disallowed by the rules (although the floorman may be breaking a rule), everyone has the same access you do (assuming no nepotism, i guess)....what else is there?

And I wouldn't tip specifically for a floorman telling me when they hope to get a game going. If they didn't give me their best guess as a matter of business, I'd play elsewhere.

[/ QUOTE ]


while i agree with some of your sentiments, i dont agree with the point that "if you find poker moral, you find all of pokers issues moral as well"...you can say that for anything and I'm not sure that it holds true for anything. there is always a downswide to a situation/job/perk of a job.

[steamboatin]

[ QUOTE ]
after heavy deliberation and lots of pot

[/ QUOTE ]

Potheads debating morals is like donkeys debating which seat is hot.

[bav]

[ QUOTE ]
Potheads debating morals is like donkeys debating which seat is hot.

[/ QUOTE ]
I'm a teetotaler when it comes to such things, but I don't consider using weed as a major moral issue. It's illegal because a few hundred dunderheads in Washington voted that way. Is gambling in Nevada moral, but gambling in Utah immoral? Doing something that is against the law is not necessarily immoral, it's just illegal. There's a diff, at least in my mind. But I don't dwell on philosophical and semantical matters...just kinda go with the built-in morality meter.

ANYway... Said morality meter also only barely wiggles at the notion of getting game advice from poker room staff. If a group of 20 locals have a phone tree and call each other when they find a juicy game, is that immoral? Is walking into a room and asking a friend "how's your table" immoral? Is seeing a better game going on at the table next to yours and moving immoral? I see nothing wrong with these.

[AKQJ10]

[ QUOTE ]
You want to take the drunk/addict/retard's money, and you're asking if it's immoral to be notified when he arrives?

[/ QUOTE ]

Not all players want to take the drunk/addict/retard's money.

Now, perhaps you throw the word retard around to mean people who are merely bad at poker. I don't, and to me the idea of beating MR individuals for serious money is repugnant.

YMMV.

[AKQJ10]

I have no problems with rewarding others for providing valuable information, except for the conflict-of-interest situations that Josem cites.