This isn't actually a rebuttal.

My larger point I guess, was that not one Christian that I know would have frowned upon me for demo derbies, yet most would frown on you over a poker tournament. You can insert whatever competition you want in place of a derby, where your entry fee is what creates the prize pool and the comparisons are going to be similar. If you paid 1K to get in a chess tournament, would that be gaming? Would your neighbor view that as immoral or would he think you're a genius if you won? What about an entry fee into a drag race? Immoral or good clean fun?

I don't feel right about making a blanket-statement about which of these are right or wrong, but it is possible that they are all wrong if you grant the premise that some types of gambling are inherently wrong.

I personally think it depends on too many factors that would need to be examined case-by-case. As it is, I personally don't believe it is right for me to make a living playing poker, even if I could, which I likely can't.

Maybe they like reading the one with less violence and fewer rapes, genocides and instances of incest.

I think the bigger issue as christian's ( myself something im dealing with ) is are we being salt and light to the community of players , people we are around. I for one have dropped the ball big time and would love to share the gospel with the lost. I have from time to time but that should be A1 on my list there to LOVE the people . Show them that we blew it with sin and christ came and lived the PREFECT life for us.we need to accept the gift he is trying to give us. I think that should be our goal moving forward as christian poker players . But as you, i have been back and forth on this , i think it can be healthy to fast from the game .but that goes with everything in life. hit me up fellow christian's its been on my heart for a web site to show poker players there is true salvation for a poker player .
J4

I would be interested in hearing a little more about this in detail. What precisely are your thoughts, for or against, poker as a Christian?

I know for me the #1 reason is I can make poker #1 in my life. Jesus said love The Lord your god with all your heart. Now this can be said about anything being put above The Lord. Sports cars money anything. In our case it could be poker. Second thing Jesus said was and love your neighbor as yourself ( summing up all the 10 commandments ). I do at times feel bad about stacking ppl and watching them leave. Would I want someone to do that to me ? Idk. For me I would love to keep poker as what it is A GAME not have an unhealthy relationship with it and spread the gospel in my sphere of peers. I pray The Lord will use me in this way. I pray that all us Christians can plant the seed of the word in unbelvers hearts.
J4

When examining if X is wrong, people often like to look at behaviour Y, and things it has in common with X, and then argue that if we allow Y, we should allow X. I think sometimes a case can be made for Y being wrong, instead of X being right.

With that said, the popular rebuttal to poker (X) being an idol in your life is that any job (Y) you work at is in a sense an idol, because you dedicate so much time and energy to it. Do you think that this is true, that a job is not unlike professional poker players, who log in a block of time a week to put food on the table?

Your objection to stacking people, is to me, the most sincere argument against poker. Especially those who have a legit gambling problem, or are perpetual losers. I'm not that comfortable making a living off people who, for all intents, have a problem with gambling. Sure, they're going to lose their money anyway, but I don't want to be the one that takes it from them, like I don't want to be the one who hands the alcoholic the bottle that kills him, even if he's going to get it from somewhere. This does, however, open the door to criticizing other jobs that succeed when others fail.

I'll go back to the basketball analogy. Does it suck to be beat at basketball? Yes. Especially in crowded places where pick-up games work by winners staying no the courts and losers rotating off, it really sucks to lose and have to wait 30 minutes to get another game.

Do I want someone to beat me? No. But does that mean it's somehow wrong for one person to beat another in a game? No.

As I noted above, you're placing a different type of value on money that you don't put on "points" or something else that is used to keep score. Let's say that there's some sort of 3-on-3 basketball tournament that costs $1000 to enter for some reason. If someone enters that tournament and that has no chance of beating you, do you withdraw from the tournament? Or do you go and beat them anyway, costing them the $1000 entry fee?

You bring up an interesting observation about money. I don't think many people would argue that playing poker for fun is wrong, so what is it about money that is inherently wrong? My guess is the love of money has something to do with this.

Indeed, but those things apply to all forms of earning an income.

Yeah, while I agree that it can apply to all jobs, I think that some careers bring it out more than others, and perhaps it's directly related to where the money is coming from.

I honestly think it depends more on the individual, and should be looked at on a case-by-case basis, but this is not an easy question for me, personally.

Maybe. Christians who work in sales (particularly, commission-based sales) have similar sorts of questions and concerns.

I agree that this is very personalized. The general principles do not lead to a clear conclusion. There are lots of ways that two different people can do basically the same thing and have very different types of perspectives and outcomes.

I don't think this is supposed to be easy.

This is a topic that I at one point in my life struggled with, especially after I found Christ and got saved. I was a professional poker player ever since I was 20 years old and I got saved when I was 24.

After taking a 6 month break from the game and learning from the word of God and being involved in a summer internship at my local church, I started to understand how thin of a line it was to play poker for a living while being a Christian. God begin to work in my heart and I started understand that if I wanted to continue to play I had to make some changes.

Like many people have stated here, playing poker is not a sin. Being a gambler that is addicted to the rush of winning or losing is totally a different thing than a professional who plays poker for a living and treats it like a business. Countless Christians who do not understand the game believe that what I do is straight up gambling, they do not see it as a sport they do not see money as a way to keep score like points in a NBA or NFL game etc.


I truly believe that it all comes down to your heart and how you treat the people you play against and how you treat poker. For example:

I remember one night that I was playing and a women who was sitting next to me was telling me that she has been playing for over 24 hrs and she had just recently lost her job and was down over $800. I felt compassion for her and decided to talk to her and treated her from some coffee away from the tables and I gave some encouragement and even gave her a brief testimony and shared the gospel to her. Now before I got saved I would have been licking my lips and was ready to pounce on her and take advantage at her emotional state, since all I could think about was profit. I've also refused to play against wasted drunk players many times, I will change tables or call it a day if it was late.

The Poker world can bring out the best and the worst in you. What is motivating you? Is it greed, money, or fame? Do you manage your bankroll well? Are you disciplined? Do you play pit games or lust after the cocktail waitresses or massage girls? Do you berate the weak players or curse out a dealer for making a error?

I started to use my poker profession into a platform where God can be honored and I try my best to keep God first in my life and not just part of my life where I don't let him shine through me on the poker table. It has not been easy, but I do enjoy playing poker more now that I ever did because I leverage it to share the good news to people and make people laugh and have a good time at the table regardless if I am winning or losing.



Poker does not define my life like it use to, God does. I don't ever take poker for granted but I make sure to use the freedom and wealth that poker brings me to give back to my community, charities, church donations, mission trips etc and when the opportunity presents itself, share Gods love and grace to the people I play with. Check your heart at all times, what is driving you? God or money?



I am 26 now and I still play live cash games for a living but God has changed the way I view people, the fallen world around me, my poker career, and temptation. I don't believe I will play after my 30's since I plan to get involved in non profits or ministry in the near future but I thank God for allowing me make a difference and a light in a industry that can be (if you let it) depressing, lonely, and materialistic at times.

"Be fruitful and multiply" are God's orders. That's a fairly explicit instruction to be productive. Poker is many things, but to call it productive requires a fair bit of intellectual elasticity.

Most Christians are willing to use Genesis as a source on the doctrine of original sin. Surely then, this simple instruction is even easier. It doesn't even require interpretation and its context is crystal clear.

Agreed that it's not productive, by the standard definition at least. Although, I'm sure there are a few occupations that are not productive as such.

I think it's slightly more complicated. For instance, is it wrong to engage in anything that's unproductive? Should one not play video games? Or even cards just for fun? It's not fruitful, after all.

I agree that this argument adds weight to the greater argument against poker, but does not succeed on it's own. The greater issue, imo, is to do with the money involved.

Edit: Thanks for sharing that, jMontoya.

The post I replied to was about poker as a career, I thought. So my response was with that in mind.

I have certainly wrestled with this question and get asked it a lot by many friends who know of my Christian faith and love for playing poker.

I am not a professional player. I view poker for me as no different than any other "hobby". I spend money on my poker hobby that I can afford to lose for the enjoyment of competition, entertainment, etc.

I also understand we are not to make other brothers and sisters stumble, so I do not encourage others to play necessarily.

I wholeheartedly believe gambling beyond one's means or becoming "addicted" is not right as well.

Not sure how much of my Christian belief system is a factor in this, but I prefer to play tournaments and not cash games (though I do play a cheap home game to hang with buddies each week).

Semi-grunching because of a lot of good but long posts.

What might be an interesting consideration is whether the morality of a situation changes given the state of the other agent. For instance, selling whiskey to an alcoholic, giving a cigarette to a pregnant woman, or playing poker against someone who is either unable to afford the losses or can't control their own gambling.

And then further, whether or not that is dependent on your knowledge of their situation. That is, is it wrong to sell whiskey to the public because some future customer, unbeknownst to you, might be an alcoholic.

It does seem compelling in a sense to agree and say that these things that otherwise might be acceptable (ignoring the obvious objections about giving anyone a cigarette, just an example that came to my head) should be avoided because of the potential level of harm. However, I'm not sure that we're able to come up with a functional system of ethics if we extend this "eggshell skull" type thinking to its furthest conclusion. We almost become unable to act because there is always a potential situation in which your action towards another agent is potentially harmful (maybe they have some rare allergy or underlying mental/physical problem triggered by what you do).

I'd suppose one way would be simply to do a risk assessment and judge whether the potential level of harm from your action is high enough to warrant avoiding it. But ultimately your cut-off point will be somewhat arbitrary and it will come down to a question of your personal conscience and what you feel comfortable with.

Those who have ears let them hear: If you cannot give up on the predator, and no one can on its own, cry for help.

Sounds like the AA stuff. But fortunately people do and can give up things on their own without asking for Gods help.

Ofc ppl more or less can give up on things on their own but this is not what I said.

One can give up poker, more or less, one can give up on sex, cigarettes, or whatever, but till today no predator became a human without crying.

Alright though.

One can change things, one can change habits but one cannot change nature and even this we can only change when we are not satisfied with the way it goes. As long as it works the way we like it to work, we cannot change it. Murderer repent when there is no way out. We give up on smoking when the fear of future problems (or other circumstances) over weighs its satisfaction.

But we cannot change nature under any circumstances: For example we cannot stop liking to be ahead of others. We cannot stop trying to hide our weaknesses and there is no difference between me/a mine worker/pope/Phil Galfond/LeBron James and Al Baghdadi. We only carry different dresses but the intention is the same. The level of our control over our bad ego/predator is different. But non of us is safe of turning into Al Baghdadi under right circumstances.

Who has ears let them hear: If you intend the good, the good will find you.