9/27/09 Some dishonest people argue that poker is a game of skill and not a game of chance/luck, but this argument is totally irrelevant because they are talking about poker with money wagered.
It’s a waste of time and energy to try to convince anyone that poker should be exempted from some anti gambling legislation, when everybody knows that betting for real money takes place with each hand of poker.
Trying to classify online poker as a game of skill is particularly stupid and hypocrite, because it’s unworkable and impossible to control. How do you decide which player has enough skills to qualify for “legal” online poker, and which player should be banned?
Experienced poker players only like to play when they can play against less experienced players.
Assuming that only players with enough skills qualify for “legal” online poker, it will be obvious discrimination to block less experienced players.
The fact is that no poker site can exist for very long and make a profit unless less experienced players are available for the sharks. If you can’t feed the sharks with small fish, the poker site goes out of business because the sharks leave.
Poker and online poker should be legalized and allowed, not because it’s a game of skill, but because consenting adults should have the right to do what they enjoy doing without interference from politicians and governments.
The idea of trying to convince people that poker is not a game of chance/luck is to try to bypass some current unfair and wrong anti gambling legislation.
In poker, an average of 50% of the hands are never shown. How can you argue that poker is mainly skill when you can’t see 50% of the hands?
Of course, skill helps substantially a poker player. No different that it helps a golf or tennis player. In most games, and most things in life, an experienced and skilled person has a big advantage against an amateur. If two tennis players bet money on the outcome of the game it’s gambling, no matter what percentage of skill is involved. No different from poker and online poker.
There is no doubt that many politicians only want to block online poker and online gambling, and any form of gambling, for personal political benefit. They have no credibility when they claim that gambling is morally bad for you.
If gambling was really morally bad for you, how do you explain that the United States is the country with the most land-based casinos in the entire world, and by far?
The biggest casino in the world is not online gambling or online poker, it’s very tiny compared to the stock market where people lost trillions of dollars recently. The biggest casino in the world is the stock market, and politicians and governments don’t try to block people from accessing it for morality or religious reasons.
One of the problems with the idiots that argue that poker is a game of skill and not a game of chance/luck is that they under-estimate the average intelligence of people when they make these claims. They do this because they know that they won’t quality for a gaming license, and hope that classifying poker as a game of skill will give them access to some very lucrative markets.
If these bad people don’t qualify for a gaming license it’s because they don’t deserve one, and should be banned. Many have a long history showing that they cannot be trusted because they are dishonest. Why should crooks be allowed free access to run online poker sites when honest people don’t have it?
These crooks should get out of the way, and let honest people get a gaming license for online poker and online gambling.
Any politician or government that tries to ban online poker and online gambling should be penalized by voters stopping to support them. Voters should not tolerate that politicians take decisions that only benefit them, without taking into consideration what the people that support them really want.
The fact is that the vast majority of people want online poker and online gambling legalized and regulated.
Online poker and online gambling should be legalized and reasonably taxed, and there is no valid reason to block it. Voters should not tolerate that some special interest groups, fanatics, and religious parties interfere with their freedom.
The Internet is meant to be opened and free from outside interference, and not controlled by a bunch of corrupted or rotten people.
Poker is gambling when money is wagered. Consenting adults should have the rights to play and gamble because so many millions of them enjoy doing it.
Who really cares if poker is a game of skill or luck, when money is wagered on each hand? Yes, it is gambling and so what?
Tax authorities don’t have any morality problem collecting money from land-based casinos and other forms of gambling. Some of them are out of touch with the reality and scared that online gambling will reduce the amount of tax or revenues they collect.
The reality is that the Internet can’t be stopped, and the sooner they legalize online gambling and online poker, the sooner they will collect taxes or revenues.
This does not mean that every crook on the planet should get a gaming license. On the contrary, crooks should be banned, but honest and clean people should get a gaming license.