Poker is Not Gambling

In light of the current bill passed by the House (election year pandering if you ask me), poker players have to be relentless in making the point that POKER IS A GAME OF SKILL, NOT A FORM OF gambling.

In the long run, those who are prepared and act in accordance with the odds will be successful and those who don't won't. That's why poker needs to be clearly delineated from slots, lotto, and the like.

I agree with you.
Unluckily some governments not think the same.

GL AT THE TABLE

Elmer_Fudd said:

POKER IS A GAME OF SKILL, NOT A FORM OF GAMBLING.

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Respectfully, poker is a game of skill AND gambling.

Beriac said:

Respectfully, poker is a game of skill AND gambling.

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Actually it is important to note that in the long term it is all about skill. This obviously can't be said about slot machines and the lotto.

Every human endeavor has an element of luck in the short term -- should they all be banned?

You're absolutely right about the long run but we've all had bad runs of luck where we have played great poker but been terribly unlucky. It's definitely a game of about 60% luck at any given time.

The official position is that if you give money to a politician it is gone forever. That is a dead cert. In poker you cannot have that same level of expectation hence it is gambling. Makes sense right?

gam·bled; gam·bling
1 a : to play a game for money or property b : to bet on an uncertain outcome
2 : to stake something on a contingency : take a chance

I kinda agree, I think that slots and lottery should be banned way before poker. All of the casinos here are banned from any card game. Actually according to the law here poker itself is illegal. Not even allowed to play for fun.

Elmer_Fudd said:

Actually it is important to note that in the long term it is all about skill.

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This would only be correct if you played at the same stakes, with the same risk and reward possibilities your entire poker career. For example, look at the wsop Main Event. There's only one a year. In your lifetime you might be able to play 70 of them. 70 WSOP Main Events is nowhere near enough for the skill to even out and give you the expected return on your investment, especially considering the huge amount of risk and possible reward.

Some dumb luck in the WSOP Main Event is enough to double the amount of money many exceptional players will make over their entire poker careers. You'd be crazy to think it's not gambling and that there isn't a great deal of luck involved here. Take 10 very good poker players of equal skill level... hell, they could play the EXACT same way... have them all play 70 WSOP Main Events over the course of their lifetimes. The profit for each person is going to differ by hundreds of thousands, and sometimes millions of dollars based entirely on the variance that luck brings into the picture.

You could say that any professional sport is gambling.

1 a : to play a game for money or property <-- Obviously from this definition
2 : to stake something on a contingency : take a chance <-- Given up their day job in to try to make money at it

There's a whole lot of luck in any sporting event, not just ones like poker where there the level of luck is clearly defined and measurable. If a sport were purely about skill, the same player or team would win every time. As it is, their skill levels don't change but you get different results. That's chance / luck, whatever you want to call it.

In another thread, we came up with a new category to put Poker in. It's "Skambling". Part skill and part gambling. Not pure skill and not pure chance.

"...and peace spread across the land."

shortstacked said:

gam·bled; gam·bling
1 a : to play a game for money or property b : to bet on an uncertain outcome
2 : to stake something on a contingency : take a chance

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So sort of like that legal thing the most people are involved in...what's it called...oh yeah THE STOCK MARKET.

Poker is a money management game of skill and luck.

There are good hands that win or lose just like there are good stocks that can win or lose. Likewise there are bad hands that can win or lose just like stocks. You can buy in for whatever amount you'd like (penny stocks or $100 a share stocks) although there is usually some sort of minimum (like poker). You ultimately are responsible for your own money but can lose it based on someone else (other investors or a money manager who makes a bad decision).

Although I'm all for poker being allowed to be played legally, as it is in my mind not the same as slots or roulette, poker is still gambling.

Read the definition given by shortstacked...

Put literally, in a game of poker, you are making bets on the probability that your hand will be best at the showdown. Of course poker isn't strictly played by betting the strength of your hands, which is where the skill part of it comes in. Deception, bluffing, psychology, wits, balls and many more aspects make up a large part of poker aswell.

Respectfully, poker is a game of skill AND gambling.

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I agree with Beriac; I read in a previous post by one of our regulars that poker is 99.9999999% luck and 0.000000001% skill in the short term, and 0.00000000001% luck and 99.9999999999% skill in the long term, which I completely agree with. It's never a game purely of skill, or conversely never a game purely of luck.

Then again I suppose it depends on who's playing it...when a rich lawyer wants to have a vacation, he might head to vegas and sit down at a NLHE table with $2000. Having no skills in poker whatsoever, he'd be almost purely gambling. Sure he'd try and bluff once in a while, hence using skill, but most of the time, he'd be gambling. Meanwhile, the regulars at that table are probably poker professionals, and play the skill part of the game very well, and take advantage of these gamblers like the lawyer who is playing a game based almost entirely on luck.

Ultimately, luck does have a part in poker, as does skill. There's no arguing that. The issue with the bill being passed here is more about politics, money and stupidity than it is about whether or not poker is gambling.

Poker is a different kind of gambling. If everyone were to sit down at the table and go all in on the first hand and see who won, then it would rank right up there with lotteries and slot machines.

But it's really about money management and patience among other things.

Kenzie 96 said:

The official position is that if you give money to a politician it is gone forever. That is a dead cert. In poker you cannot have that same level of expectation hence it is gambling. Makes sense right?

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combuboom said:

Some dumb luck in the WSOP Main Event is enough to double the amount of money many exceptional players will make over their entire poker careers. You'd be crazy to think it's not gambling and that there isn't a great deal of luck involved here. Take 10 very good poker players of equal skill level... hell, they could play the EXACT same way... have them all play 70 WSOP Main Events over the course of their lifetimes. The profit for each person is going to differ by hundreds of thousands, and sometimes millions of dollars based entirely on the variance that luck brings into the picture.

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I see what you're saying, but I guess I would say that the problem with this example is that what you are describing is NOT an example of the long term. If all a person did in their career was play 70 WSOPs they haven't played enough games to get into the long run. If they play 70 sit-n-go's per month or 70 hours per month at ring games, they would get into the long run in less than a year, and whether or not they have skills would become apparent.

Elmer_Fudd said:

I see what you're saying, but I guess I would say that the problem with this example is that what you are describing is NOT an example of the long term. If all a person did in their career was play 70 WSOPs they haven't played enough games to get into the long run. If they play 70 sit-n-go's per month or 70 hours per month at ring games, they would get into the long run in less than a year, and whether or not they have skills would become apparent.

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But I'm not necessarily saying that's all they do in their careers. They could each be professional poker players and play numerous other tournaments, but at the end of their careers their profits would be vastly different because of the variance in the tournaments with the highest stakes and largest fields (i.e. WSOP Main Events). A bunch of luck in a Main Event can easily surpass the profit of years and years of playing the best poker in the world year-round in smaller tournaments.

Of course I understand where you are coming from, but I have to agree with others who say that poker combines skill and "gambling", or luck.

Can someone pass the duck tape? My heads going to explode.

It strikes me that the wrong argument started off this thread. Poker, by definition, is gambling. However, while it is gambling, it is also a game of skill. By definition, it is NOT a game of chance (unlike actual casino games where you play against the house).

Poker is only gambling when you bet 300 dollars on a hand like 93 pre flop and hope you win the hand. You control what you bet, you control when you want to bet more and with what. You can manipulate the game. You can quit at anytime. Its not like you pull a handle and hope colors match. You control everything you do.