I am not sure which is less honorable, being a professional gambler, or accusing another man of being a liar. Actually, I would side with the latter as being more dishonorable. Christatos played with other people’s money. That’s the truth. Your argument that professional gamblers prey on inferior players, which was based wholly and completely on how you imagined professional gamblers in your head, has failed, and it would be most manly to admit this.

“All of this is besides the point. The point is that you’ve said yourself that gambling is not an “honorable” profession. That single point is what flies in the face of manliness.”

Actually, the point is that this post had nothing to do with being a professional gambler and yet you persist in making comments on this subject. If you wanted to debate the merits of professional gambling, you could have done so on the actual post that dealt with being a professional gambler. Here they are wholly inappropriate and off-subject. If you persist in continuing in either accusing Christatos of dishonesty and making off-topic arguments, be forewarned that I will henceforth delete your comments.

The concept of asking a “rhetorical yes or no question” makes as little sense as your claims.

You exhaust my credulity by claiming that you only play with others monies and, more fantastically, you only play others that are externally financed.

All of this is besides the point. The point is that you’ve said yourself that gambling is not an “honorable” profession. That single point is what flies in the face of manliness.

Thanks for your response. I was not aware of the European games you listed. I’d be interested in reading in a subsequent post your thoughts on how a gentlemen approaches gambling against other players. I always find the ethical tacks poker players. proposition bettors and others take interesting. Some say that if the wager is fair, all manner of psychological warfare can ensue.

-Aaron

I offered you what amounted to rhetorical yes or no questions. You answered maybe. You fail at conversation.

You also fail at math. Professional gamblers play with financial backing from wealthier individuals, as i explained in my previous article. That does not fall within the definition of zero-sum, as a positive quantity is being put into the system by an external agent. Your argument is akin to saying the earth violates the second law of thermodynamics because you forgot the sun exists. Your problems are not our problems.

Do you actually intend to make a good faith argument at any point?

I took a gamble* using heroin addicts as an example. I’m sure you can pick another substance, perhaps meth or PCP? A second point in the same vein* would be that people that loose their lives (figuratively) won’t have the outward signs that someone addicted to a drug might. Not to presume but you may know several people with gambling problems and not realize it.

On to your (and my) major point. (1) I see a professional gambler as someone that earns their living through gambling. If you disagree with this please state as much as it is a very important assumption. A second assumption (2) is that professionals gamble with other people. They don’t play the ponies and they don’t play the house. This assumption was explicitly stated by the author himself.

If (2) holds, what’s left are, as I previously stated, a set of zero-sum games. No wealth is created (as a broker might do), it is only transferred from the looser to the winner.

Your claim is that professional players only play each other. If this is true then (1) cannot hold as wealth would only be transferred between players. It’s hard to pay the mortgage if your net worth is constant.

I posit that instead, the professional player, or a network of pros, increase the wealth within the network by playing non professionals. In the spirit of last weeks car talk, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that is the only way it can work.

As for your final paragraph. As I’ve stated at least twice, I’ve no problem with casual gambling. In fact, I’ve no problem with pros. I just don’t see a profession that considers itself dishonorable manly. You ask why I bring up the issue of pros at all. Do you really need to ask?

As an aside, have you had a post dealing with the question “What is manliness?” I realize that is what the site is all about but I mean small aphorisms that might answer that question. Another might be, “If Teddy did it, it’s manly.”

*wakka, wakka, wakka

@Christatos
I never made claims for six of your points. The other two are addressed above. Frankly, what little dialogue we have had has devolved.

@Seth Q.
Yea… it is exhausting, isn’t it?

In my reply to Brett, I’ve tried to explain why all pro gamblers are, to some extent, hustlers. The picture painted by the author of pros only playing one another in unsustainable because no wealth is created.

After reading O’s comments, it seems he’s describing a hustler, not a professional gambler. A hustler marks some poor guy and takes him to the cleaners. Hustler’s prey on the weak and use deception about their skill level. If O is describing a hustler, then I’d agree with him. Hustlers are scoundrels.

Professional gamblers, on the other hand, play against people with equal skill and acumen. By professional gambler’s I’m thinking of people we see in the World Series of Poker or what Mr. Aristad once did. I’m sure most of the fun for professionals isn’t the money making part, but rather the thrill of engaging in mental and psychological battle with other players. I like the analogy of negotiation that Mr. Aristad gives. In poker, just as in negotiation, you bluff, use puffery, and try to figure out what the other person’s thinking.

A hustler probably isn’t interested in the mental battle, but only in the money. So they’ll do whatever is necessary to get it.

Perhaps to Mr. O a hustler and a professional gambler are the same thing. If so, I hope my description of a professional gambler and a hustler will convince him that they’re not. If not, no big deal. I won’t lose any sleep over it.

I am not going to bother forming complete arguments as you have displayed a complete and tedious disregard for any argument extending past two lines.

Prove or concede the following points or fail.

1. Gambling is wrong.

2. Professional Gambling as I describe it is the same as you describe it.

3. Addiction is a valid metric of moral measurement.

4. Alcohol is exempt from point 3.

5. Your description of professional gambling does not apply to the art of negotiatiating.

6. I advocate proffessional gambling as a worthy and attractive life choice.

7. The addictive nature of a thing invalidates it as an manly activity.

8. Everything isn’t addictive.

Prove or concede the fallacy of all 8 points or make no further responses involving me or anything I have written in anyway. If you fail to meet my requirements, I will cease to be a gentleman in the course of this conversation.

I’ve actually met quite a few heroin addicts. But I’ve never crossed paths with a gambling addict. I’m not trying to be cheeky here; that’s the truth.

I do not feel you have addressed the heart of my argument. You have said that professional gamblers “prey” on other people and “take advantage of them.” But you have yet to make the case for why this is so. Because professional gamblers like Christatos play against other professional gamblers. Their whole job is to gamble and they know exactly what they’re doing and the risks that they take. If two professional gamblers agree to play each other, how does it hold that the one with greater playing ability, simply by nature of his greater talent, is taking advantage of the other? Whoever Christatos played knew they could lose and hoped they could win. You must explain how this is “preying” on someone.

“Your example gets it backwards. The gambler is like the pro athlete that refuses matches with anyone better than themselves.”

Where are you getting your information for your assumptions about professional gamblers? As I explained above, Christatos would be invited to a game with other professional players, and he would try to beat them. He neither turned down games with superior players nor went intentionally seeking games with inferior players. Your entire argument rests on an assumption that isn’t true.

Finally, you say above that all your comments have been addressed to the issue of professional gambling. Which has left me confused because there’s nothing in this post that encourages men to become professional gamblers. That’s absolutely not the purpose of this series of posts. This series will be designed to help the casual gambler gamble properly. Thus, I feel there is no contradiction between this series and your definition of manliness. Because I certainly wouldn’t object to my daughter marrying a man who gambled occasionally. Although perhaps some men would.

How many heroin addicts do you know personally? I say that not to relate gambling to drug use (though they do have their similarities), but to point out the fallacy of relying solely on personal experience.

Regarding your second paragraph, I concede the point for the casual gambler. For the professional gambler (which all of my comments have been and will be about) to make a living, in the long run they have to prey on players of lesser skill.

Your example gets it backwards. The gambler is like the pro athlete that refuses matches with anyone better than themselves.

I think the bigger issue is how does one define “Manliness?” My personal definition is quite simple; manliness is the set of characteristics possessed by the person I would want to marry my daughter.

I’ve only recently read the “so you want my job” post by Mr. Aristad. In it, he flatly says that his profession is not honorable. Nothing against Mr. Aristad personally but, all things being equal, would you want someone that didn’t think their profession was honorable marrying your daughter?

I was not being tongue-in-cheek about not knowing of anyone whose life has been ruined by gambling. I was not saying that I don’t believe that it happens, simply that I have never known anyone personally in my life which it has happened to. Which leads me to believe that this boogeyman that gets trotted out in every gambling debate is rather overstated.

I do not see the validity of your argument that gambling consists of taking advantage of someone else. I don’t wish to speak for Christatos, and I hope he corrects me if I am wrong, but as a professional gambler he was asked to compete in certain games. He did not seek out “inferior” players to dominate. He sat down at the table with other people who were completely cognizant of why they were there and the risks involved, and he tried to beat them. I do not understand how this is different from sports. In sports, as in gambling, you are matched up with players of varying capabilities. And no matter how good or bad they are, you try to beat them. How patronizing would it be to refuse to play someone because you would beat them too badly! Would the track superstar say to his much slower opponent, “Drop out now. You can’t beat me, and it won’t be any fun to dominate you.” The people Christatos played were likely just as confident as Chris was that they could beat him. Every person who plays a game believes that and deserves a shot at proving it. There is absolutely no “taking advantage” in a game where everyone knows exactly what they have signed up for.