Poker IS a sport!

[jay1313]

My friends and I have had similar debates on what is a sport. FWIW we were more broad in our definition of sports allowing for mental and physical activity. But we agreed that if you can objectively time it, measure it, or score it. It qualifies as a sport. Therefore, anything which has judges is not a sport, it is a competition.

Although you can argue referees and umpires can affect the outcome of a sport, it is not their main purpose, and you could still have the event without referees and umpires.

As an example, you can have a pick up game of baseball, basketball, chess, poker, chess etc. But you cannot get a group of folks together to have a pickup game of figure skating, synchronized swimming, or marching band.

Obviously many competitions require a great deal of physical and mental training and practice but your skill does not determine the outcome. The opinion of the judges do.

Just the thought of some people with too much time on their hands and not enough physical or mental ability to rise to high levels of physical or mental performance.

[fnurt]

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Poker being offically a sport is the worst thing that could happen.

Sports betting is, without a doubt, illegal.

As things are, 2 courts have said the sports betting laws (Wire Act) do not cover casino games, I.E. poker, why would you WANT to change that and place poker under the Wire Act?

obg

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You make a good point! However, I think most jurisdictions do not make it illegal to bet on the outcome of your OWN athletic contest. What's illegal is to bet on the outcome of two other players or teams playing each other.

Your local tennis club probably features tournaments with cash prizes. It's common for softball leagues to award a prize to the top finishers. None of this would happen if the mere act of playing a sport for money constituted "sports betting."

So if poker were a sport, maybe Phil Gordon could go to jail for making prop bets on someone else's tournament result, but I'm not sure if that's an argument that cuts for or against.

[oldbookguy]

[ QUOTE ]
You make a good point! However, I think most jurisdictions do not make it illegal to bet on the outcome of your OWN athletic contest. What's illegal is to bet on the outcome of two other players or teams playing each other.

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Another good argument in favor of Poker, we are ONLY betting on ourselves and our abilities.

obg

[fnurt]

On a separate note, I was watching the Craig Ferguson show last week and he had some girl demonstrating the concept of "sport stacking," which seems to be a "sport" consisting entirely of stacking and unstacking plastic cups into cute little pyramid shapes. Apparently, people actually compete at this.

Wikipedia tells me that the competition was originally called "cup stacking," but they rebranded it to make it sound like a competitive sport. The fact that it has a physical element notwithstanding, it seems to me that if this is a sport, anything can be a sport.