Poker players may not be producers for society (they arent producing a good/service that makes society better/more productive) but they are still consumers and the money they spend still goes towards paying for the people who produce the goods/services.

literally everyone is a consumer though?

Poker causes the ego to diminish in many people. And have more control when you lose a game or two. This of course applies to the go-getters and if you really want to play the game well. That is good for society.

Someone at the table to my right last night had to tip the drink lady and asked me for $2 since he just got stacked. "I got you," he said. So I gave him two white chips. He never paid me back even after he re-bought and started playing again. And to think he had asked to borrow even more money from me earlier in the session.

So, net negative. I want my $2!

I don’t see how a poker player spending money is more beneficial than the original owner spending that money. Unless the money was coming from someones savings and wasnt intended to be spent at all. Maybe the point is that the poker player wins money that would otherwise be lost in the pits? Im not even convinced that a poker player winning that money is better for society than the casino winning that money. Casino pays taxes which theoretically provides value to society.

Thats just the poker players who try acid.

You do realize that the money in a bank savings account gets lent out by the bank, to people/businesses who go ahead and spend it ?

Man has got to eat sometime, but tell us how you really feel.

So its even worse when a poker player wins money and then hoards it away as cash?

Or are you saying that the savings money is still being spent?

What if the loser just saves money in a cookie jar? Is it still being lent out to other people?

Sorry Im stupid so you need to actually say what you mean.

Winning poker players don't spend much of the money anyway, they just move up the stakes with it, or back another player so that they can do the same.

Therefore poker sites or casinos are holding a lot of players' money, which they then deposit/invest with a bank etc, so the money still gets lent out and then spent by someone,
just not by the poker player themselves!

I think the question is therefore more about the ongoing erosion through rake and juice of the total player money in the system. A lot of it is going into a small number of owners or shareholder's pockets, and they will not be simply depositing a lot of it in an interest bearing bank account that John and Jane Doe then borrow from and put back into circulation.

Wealthy individuals are likely to spend a lot of their disposable income on very big ticket price items which are often already owned by or provided by other high net worth individuals
or high end companies or brands. E.g. the trickle down wealth enhancing and/or economic stimulus effects of someone buying a $100,000 watch are tiny compared to John and Jane Doe borrowing $100,000 to open a small bakery business and spending the money on shop fitting, equipment, insurance, rent, ingredients, paying staff and taxes etc.

The seller of the $100,000 watch is often going to be spending that money, or the profits, on products or services that are of a similar level of wealth and lifestyle, or if it is a company/manufacturer selling the watch, they simply aren't going to be employing enough staff and spending enough of the revenue on other costs, per $100K watch sold, compared to the couple who borrowed $100,000 to open a bakery business.

In short, a lot of wealth at the very top end gets moved around between a relatively small number of people who are at the top end and doesn't trickle down to larger groups.

This is why from an economic ethics point of view I hugely favour live poker and gambling over online, because way more trickle down occurs, and the provision of the service itself, live poker or gambling, requires a lot more services, individuals and companies to be involved.

Online poker and any form of online gambling should definitely be banned IMO as its proliferation only results in ever decreasing damage to society.

Online financial trading is different, because a much higher percentage of players/speculators/gamblers are professionals or are trying to be professionals, so most are not doing it out of a need for competition or to get a gambling fix, plus financial speculation is part of the eco system of the efficiency of financial markets, whereas there is no necessity to have a poker or a gambling eco system, apart from in some types of gambling, e.g. horse racing where without the excitement of gambling the sport wouldn't exist, and so we come full circle, because horse racing is obviously a live thing and one that has a whole industry of staff and people around it that then circulate a lot of the money generated from it into wider society.

Horse racing does rely in part on sponsorship money from bookmakers, but it got on just fine before the advent of online betting. It was sponsored by brick and mortar bookmakers and by whiskey brands etc.

You're not stupid, you're just feigning ignorance somewhat disingenuously, as demonstrated by your "cookie jar" hypothetical.

I asked a rhetorical question, true. Make of that post what you will. Lessons cost extra.

PPD, I respect your sincerity, but do not think you take things far enough in your analysis.

Let's look at live regulated poker , whether in the US or elsewhere. In the US, the rake/fees transfer from players collectively to the game operator as dropped rake or paid fee.. Similarly, chips get pushed around the table among players, until someone picks up and goes to cash out after playing. (Fwiw, the poker model is no different online, but let's talk live, physical play.)

Just like you might suspect, individuals, like Steve Wynn or the Ferttita family, piled up major money from live gambling over the years.

Conversely, the distinction between live and online wager may get blurred a bit. Live or even historic harness racing results can be duly re-harnessed as an RNG simulator for online gambling where there may be a legal requirement that a "live component" be used to decide wagers.

Finally, I think you've missed the impact of Off Track Betting on horse racing's survival as an industry.

I agree with all of the above, but horse racing (in the UK at least where I am), we don't have harness racing, and greyhound racing, flourished long before online betting.

There was on course betting, as well as off course betting in licensed betting shops. (There still is both types.)

The masses who bet on horse or dog racing would either place their bets in the morning in the betting shop and check the results later, or maybe watch the races in the pub or at home,
or they would sit in the betting shop for a few hours and watch the races.

The typical punter might have £100 to bet with and would split it across various races as well as put some on an accumulator (a parlay). Yes often losing the whole hundred pounds by the end of the day's racing, or some of it, or sometimes winning, but that was it. Compare that to now with online betting. On horse racing and dog racing alone, a punter can bet up to 24 hours a day from their computer or phone, deposit from multiple credit and debit cards and lose many multiples of £100 in a day, up to possibly all the money that they can get from their credit and debit cards.

The laws have recently changed in the UK, whereby punters have to prove that they have enough savings with which to bet, (this applies to online poker too, and some live poker), however, this still doesn't stop people who can "afford it" losing all or a lot of their savings.

Online betting has been an awful, awful development in civilisation. Betting/gambling is a vice, but at least when it was confined to a live environment and the amount of opportunities to bet per hour were limited, it would limit the amount of damage that a punter could do to him/herself.

Also, as I touched on previously, when someone is losing money in a live environment, they have a lot more perspective (generally, not always) of what is happening to them, whereas online it is just clicks of the mouse and numbers and images on a screen, so the loss of perspective and reality is much more likely and common, with reality only kicking in when it is too late.

How does a poker pros cash and chips get loaned out by a bank?

How is a poker pro winning and spending someones disposable income better than the loser not playing poker and instead spending their disposable income?

I'm not sure how you think posting cryptic, one-off questions like you've done above advances a coherent discussion, Socrates.

However,

"How does a poker pros cash and chips get loaned out by a bank?"

1. "Cash" doesn't, until deposited into a bank. To be a bit more precise re "chips", chips represent money spent at a casino, and so, as long as they remain outstanding, their value perhaps has been held by the casino in deposits at the casino's bank ..... in which case that value CAN be lent out by a bank.
There is a mechanism whereby a casino, at least as intended to work in Nevada, is directed to maintain minimum capital requirements, to ensure assets are available to back all issued casino chips' value. (Many years ago, occasionally, I literally used to run cash from a small strip casino to Wells Fargo, to ensure capital requirements for "chips" were verifiable and met when needed, for reporting purposes. )

"How is a poker pro winning and spending someones disposable income better than the loser not playing poker and instead spending their disposable income?"

2. It's not, if you are talking about "spending"; I was talking about "investing". Do you see the difference , in terns of capital formation and allocation post-game ?
(Briefly, poker MAY be viewed as a process by which funds are redirected from less capable hands to more capable hands for purposes of investing. "A fool and his money are soon parted" implies that the ultimate holder, who cashes out winnings from the poker game is less of a fool, perhaps, than the player who bought in and lost.)

If cards dealt are viewed as short term options on the pot, "investment" decisions regarding a pot may serve as a proxy for overall investment acumen and skill at pricing/valuing options, again, perhaps.

A poker hand, as an option on the pot, may finish either in the money or not, upon expiration. Enjoyment value of playing the game is external to this economic analysis. (A player who doesn't enjoy the game will miss a value provided to one who does get entertainment from playing ..... that difference may be an additional element in knowing who wins and loses from playing poker, the miserable marginal grinder or the happy recreational player.)

Sorry my original post was responding ledns post but I didnt quote it. I dont think my questions are cryptic. Maybe I didnt explain clearly which is my fault. I was trying to say you either win money someone will spend anyways or you win money they cant afford to lose. So it is either neutral or bad for society. That is very simplistic thinking I know.

Thanks for responding more seriously. So theoretically poker players holding chips may have some value. I think its a stretch to say success in poker equals success in investing but its an interesting view. As for happiness I would say poker is a net negative there but that is subjective and hard to determine.

But the harm it brings is more of a reflection of society than on the game itself. There's nothing inherently wrong with games just as there is nothing inherrently wrong with money. It's a person's outlook on life/money along with any toxic personality traits that can turn them into a negative.

It could be argued that gambling doesn't necessarily bring any harm, it's just that it attracts a tiny subset of society that creates problems for themselves and others in practically everything that they do - at least until they change their thinking patterns.


It's questionable whether or not there's any alternative to the type of entertainment that gambling/casinos provide, and if it suddenly didn't exist it's not like other forms of entertainment are going to fill the void since the market for that industury (or any other industry for that matter) isn't dependant on it.

Just because a casino gets imploded doesn't mean there's suddenly room for a new thearter since there are already 3 on the same block. And if there weren't, perhaps the market would demand one, but again, that's not dependent on the casino not being there.

Tho I'd imagine one could argue that the existence of a casino might create a demand for a new theatre.


That would be more of an agrument (as flawed as it is) for why people single out gambling, it shouldn't matter whether the negative effects are obvious or not when determining the overall net effect. Nor should more weight be given to a particular negative just because it's easier to see.


So again, it's all a matter of perspective. Approximately 150 million+ gamblers don't view losing as "someone pissing in their ear." They accept the game for what it is and view it as an overall positive experience regardless of whether they win or lose because it's not soely about money for them. They don't have to ask 'what good is it' because those benefits are obvious to them.
It appears it's from the subset of the 10 million compulsive/degenerate gamblers where the trouble might be coming from, and even then only about 2 million actually see gambling as a problem in their life and might view it as someone 'pissing in their ear.' - and then maybe come on an internet forum to bitch about it and blame everyone else.

As I said, I could relate to a certain extent, but it doesn't appear that bolstering that type of attitude is helping anyone, nor that prohibition is going to somehow change the underlying problems in one's thought process.

But couldn't this argument also be used agaisnt digital commerce & automation in general?

Also, in regulated states like Michigan, the online gaming platforms must be partnered with an actual brick & Mortar Casino, so it's really just an extension of that.

Pokerstars partners with Odawa, a Native American Casino. WSOP partners with TurtleCreek, another Native American Casino, and BetMGM is licensed under MGM Resorts/Casino.

I would exactly make the same argument against digital commerce and digital automation, and also against companies / apps etc that "disrupt" an existing market or service.

The argument I would make is not to ban it or stop these things from existing or from advancing, but that when they do, they should pay a tax (a compensation if you will) on their profits
that helps repair the damage, and it often is huge damage, to the market that they have disrupted.

This compensation could be used in a number of ways to help those people and businesses that have been disrupted to open new and different businesses, or to pay to train them to learn new skills or a new profession. In the case of older people who are still in work and their livelihood has been disrupted, it could be paid as straightforward monetary compensation.

Further compounding the problem, is that not only do the types of companies referred to disrupt and damage an existing specific market, but they then take those profits and often start taking over other similar or related digital / tech based companies, thus creating a monopoly, and worse still they often use their profits to branch out into other parts of the economy, either to do more disruption, or more often just to gain control over more stuff.

All of the above didn't happen much at all in the first few years of the internet, but over the last ~10 years it has been happening at a pace. If it carries on at the pace it is going at, we will have a very small number of companies controlling a huge chunk of the economy. It will be like a return to Victorian times (UK expression there), meaning that there were 99% workers and 1% factory owners and very little in between, only now/in the near future it will be in a high tech economy, rather than an industrial or manufacturing economy.

So yes, for the good of mankind and of humans being human, shifting too much online and allowing a completely free market where one individual or company controls or has too much influence over huge chunks of people's lives, is a dangerous and bad thing.

Unfortunately, most people, companies and politicians are very short-termist in their thinking, so I fear that we are on an inexorable road to the outcome I have described.

I'm seeing no good. I'll just go with that.

Learning to play poker well is definitely beneficial because that involves learning concepts that are very useful in real life.

Playing small stakes poker mainly for fun is fine.

Playing small stakes poker for a living is OK especially if you're playing helps keep games going that non pros are having fun playing.

However, high stakes poker is at least somewhat immoral. If you are a losing player, it is kind equivalent to buying gold toilet seats. Depending on your political ideology this seems like a mild to moderate sin. Especially given how much that money could help those many people who are in need. If you are playing high stakes for a living, you are abling and providing entertainment for high stakes losers who are being at least somewhat immoral. You are also probably being somewhat deceptive because most amateurs don't realize how much your edge will earn you. (Also, most high stakes pros are deceptive in another way. They feign friendliness toward their "customers" that they don't actually feel.) Finally, there is the fact that anyone smart enough to beat the big games (except for some juicy private ones) could almost certainly been doing something else for the benefit of the world.

One could argue the opposite. The money lost by recreational players at small stakes often means so much more to them than the money lost by recreationals in high stakes games. Everything is relative.

Also so awkward and weird to say it’s “immoral” on their behalf to be a mostly losing player playing high stakes bc the money could be used for good. Umm what? You could extend that metric of “immorality” to the infinite exboritant and ridiculous seeming things rich ppl spend their money on

Concepts? Such as?

David Sklansky IMO is overvaluing the amount that you can learn from playing poker, or indeed playing chess, and apply to life in general to one's benefit.

Yes both games (mind sports) are in some aspects a microcosm of life itself, but I feel in a fairly limited way.

Also, even if his evaluation of the skills learned in them and of use in life, is accurate and mine is an underestimate, the amount of time you need to spend (waste)
to become either a top level poker player or a top level chess player, outweighs the value of the things that you can learn from those games and apply to the rest of life.

And I have