Not sure if this is the right section to post this. Please move if not.

Played poker and sports bet most of my life but wanted to ask others an opinion about the ethics behind poker/sports betting. I haven't played much in the last few years, partly for the reasons below.

In a "typical" job there is almost always an exchange of money for value or vice versa. For example, a construction worker builds a building (provides value) and the owner of the building pays them. Or, a cashier handles payments (provides value) and the owner of the store pays them. Usually the more value you provide the more you get paid. Not always true, examples being a teacher or first responder but for most cases it is. For example, a professional basketball player makes millions of dollars because they generate millions of dollars in tickets, jersey sales, ad space etc.

So I believe there is this conscious or unconscious driving force in most jobs that the more value you provide the more you get paid. This leads to more value being exchanged. Poker and Gambling is not like that. For you to win somebody has to lose. The more money you make, the more money somebody else loses. It feels that the driving force behind poker/sports betting is not to provide value but instead to increase the margin of which you are better at the game than the other people you are playing/betting against.

This is really just saying how much better am I at taking your money than you are at taking mine. Since that is the driving conscious or unconscious force in poker/sports betting, I feel this often leads to angle shooting/scamming etc. If you beat me in a game or win a bet, then you are better at taking my money than I am at yours. However, if I angle you and don't pay, then perhaps I am better. If you end up robbing me of the money in the end, well I suppose you would be better.

What I am saying is I believe sports betting/poker naturally leads people to steal, scam, and angle others, even if those people originally have no intention of ever doing so. Would others agree with this? If so, how do you feel about gambling/sports betting ethically? If you do it or do it for a living, and agree with my thoughts, how do you rationalize it?

Personally I see no ethical issue with either poker or sports betting. In general though I lean libertarian on such issues. Adults should be able to do whatever they wish so long as they aren’t hurting others and are doing so with informed consent.

Informed consent is very important; it means nobody is being coerced or cheated out of their money. In poker, foe instance, you are essentially giving consent to other players to take your money if they are able to outplay you. If a game is run dishonestly, that destroys the “informed” part of the informed consent — you wouldn’t agree to play in a game if you knew it was rigged against you. Things like rake that tend to hurt you do not destroy informed consent; they are done openly and you agree to them knowingly when you play.

Therefore, so long as the game is fair, all players implicitly give informed consent for you to take their money if you can. Given that, I don’t see any ethical issue.

Yeah Poker is a zero sum game, one's players gains is another's losses. Not unlike Chess etc. The only difference is your placing wagers. Do any of these activities contribute/provide value to society as a whole? Not really. But that's not necessarily a metric for deciding if something is unethical or not. Playing videogames doesn't add value but isn't unethical. If you were to play poker for play money it would be no different. It seems like you have an ethical issue with taking people's money, not the game itself. Which my only argument for the ethics of it would be that there's informed mutual consent, as stremba said
.

Personally, I don't think there is any reason or any appetite for the ban on sports betting. It pleases the vast majority who participate, and while most of them will lose money as long as that money comes from the entertainment budget, no problem. For example, if you bet an average of $ 200 per weekend in the soccer markets, that's not bad for most. You don't expect to lose more than $ 20 per week on average, which is certainly not that much. It will cost you more to go to the cinema if you add the inevitable popcorn and soft drinks.

Telling other people how to live has become all too common and accepted. We must be allowed to take control of ourselves, we must take responsibility for our actions and decide for ourselves whether we want to bet, have a drink, or even both at the same time.

This ethics crap again? Here's a story:

Last week I was having issues with my furnace in the basement. It runs on oil. I tried to troubleshoot myself but I'm no expert and couldn't figure it out. I called an HVAC guy and I was told there is a $95 service fee right off the rip BUT that they would do whatever they can to fix the problem without charging more. Cool.

So the guy comes to the house. Takes a look and quickly diagnoses the problem. Needs a new control box. Simple. Says he has one in the truck. Goes to the truck, pulls out a black box but says it's the wrong one. He has to go 30 miles away and get the right part and with all the driving and whatnot he usually charges $350 but he'd do me a solid and charge $245 total(fee included). Ok cool. He'll be back in a few hours.

Comes back in a few hours. Says the first store didn't have the part. Had to.go out of the way to get the part. Says he has to charge me $400 total. Oh ok. Kind of handcuffed now. Guy pulls out a black box, hmmmm. Installs it in 5 seconds and good as new. He provided a service of value and I paid for it.

But did he have to make up a story about going to find this mythical part that was in his truck the whole time so he could upcharge me for a 5 second job? Would you consider this HVAC technician ethical because he fixed my heat while using my own ignorance against me? Well, that's life. People are selfish, money hungry and greedy and ethics get twisted up all the time whether it's on the felt or in a boardroom or in a mechanic shop. Get over it.

Poker is a game. It's fun and it's competition. And I'd say 99% of the people that play know what they are signing up for. To me that HVAC guy is more of a degenerate than anyone I've encountered playing poker.

Update: woke up this morning to a freezing cold house. Can't get the boiler to run. Looks like the service guy threw lipstick on a pig. Real ethical guy providing great service. Much more honorable lad than us scum poker players.

You know, this is an interesting topic in general. I mean, ethics is important. I think we can all agree on that. And I have from time to time questioned the ethics of taking money from other players, no matter what the stakes. I think anyone who plays poker has that thought from time to time. But then I think, why is it considered ethical to layoff people from a job they've had, in some cases, for decades, but, to some people, it is considered unethical to freely compete in a game where there are winners and loses but anyone can get up and leave at any time? To the best of my knowledge everyone, with the exception of trust fund babies, has to work at something. . .at least for awhile. In the vast majority of cases people can't just up and leave a job. The damn job provides their living, their medical care, the medical care for their family. The boss has all the power to really f up a life, and our society says it's just fine to do so. But sit down where everyone knows the rules and situation and has the power to leave and never come back at anytime and some folks consider that unethical. Hell, some people think it's downright sinful.

Poker may not be the most profound way to spend time (and really what in the long run is?), but there are a million mid-managers walking into the office tomorrow morning who are worse than any poker player I know.