Is it truly reconcilable to win a significant portion of the money directly/indirectly
from degenerate gamblers and then to donate some of it to charity.

Perhaps such poker player donations are a form of conscious or maybe subconscious penance?

A similar related concept, the horrible events of 9/11. Some traders who accidentally made fortunes from the stock market crash then donated a % to 9/11 survivor charities. But what about the plight of the stock market losers?

Most charitable donations do not have a loser in the equation apart from the donator themselves.

''Accidentally made fortunes''

Sure.

Spot on analogy. Winning money playing poker is pretty much identical to profiting from 9/11. Poker players disgust me. They should be giving their winnings to the brave floormen and women first responders who risk their lives every day so that you can play poker safe from the Alec Torelli's of the world.

Clearly the act of 9/11 was not an accident, but the making of enormous amounts of money in the stock market by some people who were short of it based on regular market fundamentals was an accidental large profit.

There's a clear difference of course between 9/11 donations by stock market traders and poker players. The traders gave money to charities linked to the cause of their profits, whereas as far as I know poker players do not donate to gambling related charities, they donate to things like WaterAid and mosquito nets.

Perhaps the idea to post this thread should have been left in your subconscious. In 14 years on this forum, I've read countless "when should you fold AA preflop? satellite!" threads, innumerable "what day is best to play on day 1 of wsop main to maximize my non existent EV?" threads, seen a thousand cullings, seen Mason insult a million posters, and ten million instances of players who "can't prove it but know it" that online poker is rigged, and I'd rather go through that all again eternally for my lifetime than read this foolishness again. Jesus.

Also many poker players who donate a percentage of their winnings to charity usually publicise the fact that they are doing so, which of course makes them look good to a lot of people so is great PR.

Often the biggest of charity donators in society are those that do it quietly and without fanfare and you only find out about the big sums they have donated after their death.

Yeah they should play the 1drop in private and not tell anyone bcoz it's so douchey to give to charity when people know about it.

The One Drop I don't have an issue with and is not what I am referring to. Any poker tournament billed in advance as a juice or part entry fee to charity is fine. It may not be the world's best way of raising money for charity but such events are occasional and often once a year affairs per poker organisation.

I am talking about individual players who have introduced the charity element as a constant into their poker and/or who self publicise their donations.

only if your Karma meter is low and you need a refill.

Mods, make this the SageDonkey containment thread.

Thanks for the reminder - I've got a bunch of charity Direct Debits for like £4/month or whatever. Never really planned on it, they're pushy. For each wall of text I accidentally read from this point on I'll cancel a DD.

Your move - learn to edit your posts or that adorable guide dog I sponsor starves.

How clean or untarnished does money need to be to be donated to charity, or does it not matter at all.

Is there a moral scale for this, and if so where does winnings from poker sit in the scale relative to other sources of income. Let's throw in a legal arms dealer donating money to charity and money donated to overseas charities by a corrupt government as two of a number of sources where some people may start to feel uneasy about it.

Certainly some charities have a policy to refuse donations from certain types of sources.

Spend some more time doing research about who exactly were the groups that made tremendous profits from 9/11. You should also look into who should have been present in the buildings, but were miraculously not there when they fell.

Just because they are doing it for the publicity doesn't make it any less charitable than those that don't publicize it.

The charity gets the money either way.

If you're asking whether it is ethical to donate some earnings realized from a game of skill, the answer is, of course, yes.

A poker player donating a portion of winnings is no different from a golfer, tennis player, etc. donating a portion of their winnings.

The 9/11 comment strikes me as a troll.

Not the same as from a golfer etc. Prize money for golf is not player funded, nor does it have a social harm associated with it.

The 9/11 comment was not a troll. I knew it would evoke strong reactions/emotions but it is still the case that as wonderful as the donations were there were some serious financial losers within the equation. So I'd say yes, donate, donate and big, but from that particular source there are some issues.

Morally it would be better for the winners to pay back the losers and then both sides to donate.

Option A: Give money to starving child in Africa
Option B: Give money to degenerate gambler that will probably gamble it away again

Feeling bad for winning is the worst thing you can do on poker world and will make you a loser in the long run
When I started playing I had a huge upswing an started feeling that, I felt bad for the players that lost to me, started to help them improve and soft played against some

Some years later I lost eveything I had won and also a lot more money including my car and some other goods

No one was nice with me, no one cared, no one felt bad for me
No one helped me except my mother and father

I learned the worst way that in poker world you cant have any feelings, you need to kill everyone on table without any mercy

Thats what I do now, when I sit on table I want to take all money I really dont care if the player will starve or lose his house or if their sons will have no school

I take the max I can and dont give a ****

It shouldn't be looked as an either or thing.

But I would argue that if someone *is* making charitable donations from poker winnings that have had a negative effect on others it makes more sense if the money is donated to charities in that field. E.g. to local homeless shelters in LV (or wherever someone plays), to Gamblers Anonymous or to The Samaritans.

I think I saw somewhere that Todd Brunson does do this, I may be mis-remembering this.

Would still be kinda BS though IMO when winnings are from deliberately exploiting others.

It is an either or thing, any money you give to a gambler is money that could have been given to a charity. If you give to both, you're giving the charity less than you could otherwise, hence you're giving to a gambler INSTEAD of a charity. You don't even understand your own argument it seems.

Where have I mentioned giving money to a gambler?

I said I feel it would make more sense to give money to charities concerned with some of the negative effects of gambling, if giving money at all.

For example, the suicide rate in Las Vegas is very high with gambling obviously being one of the contributing factors.

Giving money lets say to fund mosquito nets in a poor African country I feel is partly a vanity donation by those doing it from poker winnings. If it is not then IMO they should additionally give money to the gambling related charities.

Did you know that 90% of money donated to charity goes to paychecks of people that work on the organization, other costs as transportation and energy and only 10% goes someway to people in need?

Its better to go to a poor county and throw money on the streets than donating to any charity foundation

I'm done.

Wow, just wow on how you are debating this.

You are quoting what I said regarding 9/11 specifically. This is clearly not what I have said or put forward regarding the current situation of poker players giving a percentage of their winnings to charity.

Please don't twist what I have said in what is a serious discussion. It is not a nice thing to do.

Everyone of course has an opinion and mine may well be wrong and have flaws in it.

This is so but I think it also varies a lot from charity to charity and REG, who I am in part referencing, as far as I know do achieve a high percentage of the funds and the support reaching its intended destination.