It's not the chips that make it gambling - I could pretty easily accuse you of not reading my post just as you did of me. It's the MONEY involved that makes it gambling. Since you seem compelled to dwell in details, I'll give an example:
In a cash game, chips have a 1:1 relationship with dollars. $1 in chips = $1 in money. You are wagering the MONEY that the chip represents. Outcomes are uncertain.
So if you pay a fee to enter into a chess tournament, then you are gambling? So by that reasoning, just about every single contest and game played is gambling. If someone has a contest for the best underwater picture taken off the coast of california, I will need to rent a snorkel and a camera to do it, so therefore I am gambling? No, I read your post, you are simply trying to make this equation: money = gambling. You
are not gambling on chess if you pay an entry fee. That is just silly. Nor could you say poker is
not gambling only when it is online and a freeroll. It either is or it is not. By your reasoning money is what determines if something is or is not gambling. That is just flat out wrong. Again, courts of law have already established it takes more than money involved for it to be gambling. Namely, if the game is one requiring a high degree of chance or "luck", like
roulette. Skill is required for success in poker, not luck. In order to make you understand, that snorkle and camera is simply the equipment you must buy/rent in order to partake in this contest.
Just like poker chips. Or pads and uniforms required in a football game. Are you going to say that playing football is gambling? You must, as you have to buy that stuff to play.
In a tournament, the only wager that truly happens is BEFORE the tournament begins. You pay an entry fee, wagering that you can place ITM of that field. Again, the outcome is uncertain.
Yet that outcome is not solely based on luck or chance, rather on level of skill. How else do you explain the same faces always showing up at final tables?
All outcomes are uncertain, in everything. That renders your argument a moot point. Sorry.
Your argument about "strength of move" isn't valid at all to this debate. It's valid as a statement - obviously certain moves in poker represent strength more than others - but it is not analogous to chess since in chess you are moving pieces that don't represent wagers... If you have an entry fee for a chess tournament, then yes, that too would be gambling.
So I was right. Not surprising. This proves my reasoning was sound; you actually think playing a chess tournament is gambling. I just do not know how to respond to such an obtuse statement.
As a chess player, I disagree about your dismissal of "strength of move" This most certainly is a type of wager-move within my (correct) reasoning that poker is not gambling. Again, since you (incorrectly) put money=gambling into all of your equations, you therefore cannot see this because it is a chess piece, not a chip. In other words, you are proceeding from a false assumption in your argument. Under my correct equation, it is basically the same thing and logically so.
You are making a wager move each time in chess. Or perhaps you simply do not understand chess. That is fair enough. Know that, however, I really recommend learning chess. It can really improve your poker game.
Do you consider sports betting to be gambling? What about if you are on the team playing? The outcome is still uncertain and you are still wagering money. Is this any different from a poker tournament? You can't really refute that as an analogy since the only true difference arises in team vs. solo play. But if you don't believe sports betting is gambling then I have to give up here.
No, sports betting is gambling.
However, you are gambling outside of what is happening. You have no control over it. If you bet on the
outcome of a poker game, you are doing the exact same thing. Your analogy only strengthens my argument, and here is why; when you are
the one playing in the game,
you are not gambling. You are a merely a player. In sports, you are not allowed to make bets on the outcome of the game if you are a player, for obvious reasons; you might throw the game in order to make your bet pay off. Yet if playing poker is gambling, as you incorrectly insist, are you not committing the same offense as the sports player? You are playing in the game and gambling on an
overall outcome
you have control over (you could lose on purpose).
You just defeated your own argument here. Thanks.
Edit: One last thing I thought of. If you play poker with no money involved, ie JUST chips, it is NOT gambling. Once you put money in, it is. And I already said I AGREE that poker is a skill game. "Skill-game" and "gambling" are NOT mutually exclusive.
Again, you made this statement already and are still wrong in it. You are incorrectly equating money to gambling. Money does not make it gambling,
the amount of skill involved in the game or the lack thereof is what makes it/deos not make it,
gambling. Think about your reasoning here. It is way off base. You cannot say the exact same game is and is not gambling. Either it all is, or it is not.
I think I have done a very good job destroying your argument, here. Sorry.
1.) You state that gambling = money. I have proven it does not. I am supported in case law and will once again below in dictionary definitions, if that will help you to understand;
gam·bling [gam-bling]
noun
1. the activity or practice of
playing at a game of chance for money or other stakes.
2. the act or practice of risking the loss of something important by taking a chance or acting recklessly: If you don't back up your data, that's gambling.
The above is from dictionary.reference.com
Her is another, from collins dictionary;
noun
the act or process of
playing games of chance to win money ⇒ He thinks gambling is wrong. ⇒ Gambling is a form of entertainment. ⇒ He likes gambling.
2.) I have established that gambling = overall element of luck or chance involved + money bet on the overall outcome of said luck or chance occurring. Pretty much just as the dictionary defines it.
So, unless you plan on accusing me of using semantics, which is about your only come back as far as I can see, which will simply ignore known dictionary references as well as established law concerning what the word does actually mean, we should be done here.