Quote:
Originally Posted by poetrythug  Re-read Steve's post. He said less than 1% are purely "light" or "dark" -- 100% dedicated to a polarity. Most of us have shades of gray. I think your question is really more like, "Is this a good [morally] job to have?"
I would say, no. Gambling is the redistribution of wealth, not the creation of value. It's a zero-sum game -- you get money by taking it from others (legally, through the card game.) Compare that to a job where you are providing a service (writer, doctor, street musician). In this case, you are creating value for people by providing a service, and you are getting compensated for that.
I suppose I am skeptical about the notion of gambling with someone being a "service of value that is provided" on the basis of entertainment value. |
Yeah your right its more a question of morality than light/dark thats just the context I placed it in.
Anyway, if I would provide strategy advice to the general poker community would this be more morally acceptable? Considering I am still basically teaching people to take money from someone else. Also the advice will be available for everyone and completely free so I guess that makes it a bit more acceptable...
A lot of professionals use the reasoning that they'r providing entertainment value to make it more morally acceptable, a lot of them struggle with this especially at the higher limits where the money lost/won is quite outragious. Personally I always thought of this as a bit of a cop out because in reality most people don't play for entertaiment value but because they think they can beat the game (which is very very hard) and there's little entertainment value at any stakes excepth the very low ones (this is one of the few places where most people play for fun and not to make money).