Goofy Devil's Advocate argument for UIGEA

[crzylgs]

This thread certainly delivers on the promise of the subject line.

[Quanah Parker]

I'm in agreement with Dane's post.

The premise that playing poker for play money is an acceptable alternative, and thus our gov't should be able to regulate it is kooky.

Using the golf analogy, putt putt and driving ranges offer all the same components of golf played on a 18 hole course, without the huge waste of land and damaging impact on the environment. Therefore, the gov't is OK to ban golf, since golfers still have putt and driving ranges.
Honestly, I'm not a golfer, but if the gov't tried this, I'd think they were way out of line.
Well, I've already thought our gov't is way out of line, and that was a long time before they started messing with poker.

[Artsemis]

So what if the betting is part of what makes it fun? The government should have no right to determine what we are allowed to spend our money on for entertainment that harms nobody.

[YoDuff]

Piece Of Cake and Dane S have it right, but I'd add a little more. Your argument shouldn't be that poker is not gambling. It is gambling. The main argument should be that it's not the government’s job to tell us how we can spend our money, as long as we're not hurting anybody else. That's really the only argument necessary.

If I decide to take my life savings and invest it all in a company that is probably going to go bankrupt, I'm gambling. People make bad investments daily. And a lot of them are doing so to get their 'Fix'. Should there be a law against it?

But if you care to take it a little further, poker is gambling with a fair amount of skill involved. It's a game of chance AND skill. It's a gamblers game that you can learn to get better at all the time. The government has no problem with their lottery, which is completely chance. Many people are addicted to the lottery and throw their money away playing it. And there is nothing they can do to improve their chances, whereas in poker you can constantly learn and get better.

There is definitely something about this mix of skill and gamble that makes poker uniquely appealing. Your friend is wrong about it being just a gambling fix. Poker is the only gambling that I do. I could easily bet on the horses or the NFL online. I never do. Not before poker, and if online poker goes away, I won't be doing it after poker. And there are a LOT of poker players that don't.

[Petomane]

Why are people funny about money? So what if money is involved?

Should Tiger Woods be playing golf for play money? Everybody does everything for money.

Let's face it, if only a million people played online poker, they'd leave us alone. It's the huge amounts of money that attracted the feds - they want their cut.

[Skallagrim]

It is about money and it isnt. Poker has to be played with something of value at stake or it isnt really poker - I will draw to that 2 outer if I have nothing to lose. It really does not matter what's at stake though, as long as it has value to the players. The easiest way to establish value is money, but pride or prizes can work too. And it does not have to be alot of money (I play a lot of $5 SnGs) just so long as its enough money that people have a real interest in the outcome of the game. Tiger Woods is not going to play his best game when he is at a charity golf tourney with no prize, unless events happen that put his pride at stake. Poker players are the same.

[TheMathProf]

While the something of value argument has some significant merit to it, I think there is a secondary argument based on the notion of skill.

While people obviously want to make money playing poker (at least ideally), I think people also frequently play games that challenge them. While I think this component may be a more common factor in other skill games, people want to show that they can beat certain levels or certain calibers of opponent.

These opponents are not available in play money games, because (A) these opponents can afford to wager more (usually) and (B) these opponents win more money by playing at these higher levels (often).

Restricting access to games that can be played for cash not only restricts access to the gambling component of the game (which frankly is fun), but also restricts access to the caliber of player that provides us with this challenge.

[xxx]

I kind of agree with your friend.

Didn't Jesus start out playing on IIRC for rating points? He said the competition was very tough.

The thing is, the really good players that play now are in it for the money, and the "top" play money players are just not in the same league. To get good competition, you just have to play for money today. The only way the argument would work is if the good players would play with play money, and that isn't going to happen. So your friend has a point in a theoretical world, but it won't work in the real world.

[greyhawke54]

[ QUOTE ]
I kind of agree with your friend.

Didn't Jesus start out playing on IIRC for rating points? He said the competition was very tough.

The thing is, the really good players that play now are in it for the money, and the "top" play money players are just not in the same league. To get good competition, you just have to play for money today. The only way the argument would work is if the good players would play with play money, and that isn't going to happen. So your friend has a point in a theoretical world, but it won't work in the real world.

[/ QUOTE ]

The big thing with the person I was debating this with is that they do not think that a person can really make any kind of a living gambing in any way. In their backround have been problem gamblers, so their view of poker and gambling is colored by this past. In their opinion anyone who gambles has a problem they just have not admitted to it yet.

I know I will never convince this person otherwise. What I was bothered by is that another person that was there also thought the argument was sound. They are both from very different political backrounds.

The thing is that we on this forum see poker way differently than most people in the rest of the world. What I am afraid of is that there are more people out there that would agree with this argument and not look at it the way we do. What I was hoping to accomplish with this post is to see some arguments that stepped outside of ourselves. Most of the responses dont really take into account how the other person thinks about the issue.

I actually thought that as poker player we should be better able to do this than most. As figuring out how the other guy is thinking and how to best use that is one of the skills that we as poker players specialize in.

[TheMathProf]

Part of your friend's argument as it was stated to us was the competition angle, and the competition simply isn't the same.

Suppose for instance that you are a world-class chess player, who was accustomed to playing in world-class tournaments, receiving appearance fees, and putting up modest entry fees for the opportunity to win thousand and thousands of dollars from prize pools.

Then your country decides that playing chess where an entry fee is required is illegal. And because chess could generate nowhere near the corporate sponsorship that poker can, your opportunities to play in these world-class events completely dries up.

And somebody comes up to you and says, "Hey, but you can play chess anytime you want! You can go to the park and play, you can invite people over, you can gather a whole bunch of people to play and just not have prizes. Nobody's stopping you from playing chess. You're just a degenerate gambler."

Except all the other world-class players don't have these restrictions. There was that one other world-class player who was in your country that you knew about, but you used to have hundreds of world-class opponents to choose from. Also, the remaining world-class player likes to keep a different schedule than you do, and you rarely played in the same events anyway.

So the majority of the players who are willing to play in the park or participate in these events without entry fees are significantly weaker. You occasionally pick up an expert-rated player, or the rare national master, but these players have national ratings more than 400 points below yours, indicating that you should be able to beat them approximately 98% of the time. And they don't challenge you in the same way your opponents used to. Your opponents used to come at you with ingenious methods of attack, some of which you wouldn't have even considered, and others that were only at the fringe of your ability to understand, and all of your resources would be required in order to withstand such an attack. Or maybe sometimes you wouldn't. Here, your opponent is just doing everything in his power not to lose. He knows you are going to beat him and is just trying to stave off the inevitable as long as possible. 49 times out of 50, he fails, and the 1 time out of 50 where he doesn't, he is now the envy of all of his friends.

The competition level simply isn't there for this particular player, and this player has been robbed of the opportunity to play against players who can challenge him.

Now the example may be a little far-fetched in places, but I think that in many ways it is reasonaably analogous to poker. The competition level between the play money games and between the real money games, even at the micro-limits, can be pretty tremendous.

"Look, that guy is calling everybody with any two cards. I guess I can call him down with middle pair, no kicker." Except that's not really poker at that point, it's no fold 'em hold 'em. And that changes the very nature of the game, as well as the competition that you face, and makes you a weaker poker player than you were when you started.

While the money is certainly an appealing part of the game, and probably the most appealing part for many players, for people who play poker because of the competition it provides, these laws will hinder players willing to abide by the letter of the law.