Why the argument for legal poker is falling flat

Poker players are generally a logical, astute, and informed bunch, but when it comes to arguing in favor of expanding current Brick & Mortar poker outlets or regulating online poker the overwhelming majority of the poker community simply doesn’t get it. What I mean by “doesn’t get it” is, the poker community has the fixed notion that the rest of the world thinks precisely like poker players – and that the rest of the world is going to look at poker from a logical, astute, and informed perspective!

You see, the poker world is populated by non-conformists and societal dropouts who have chosen to live a freewheeling lifestyle -mainly because they have failed in leading a “normal” lifestyle. To think that the rest of the world is going to have a mindset in line with people who keep vampire-like work hours is an absolute folly of rational thought.

People going to work Monday through Friday, knowing precisely how much they expect to make every hour, day, week, and year, are simply not thinking the same as someone who eats breakfast at 4 in the afternoon and purposely plies their trade after midnight, never knowing if it is going to be a good, bad, fantastic, or heart-breaking day at the office.

Because of these hours poker players tend to associate with other non-conformists: Strippers, barflies, drug-dealers and users, waiters, cooks, and other members of the service industry who don’t go home to count their tips but spend them at the bar, and so forth (I think you can see the picture I’m drawing of just who is around a casino at 3 AM on a Wednesday).

Now you may begin to see why the rest of the world might have a hard time relating to the life of a poker player.

Well, I have some more really bad news for poker players; most people find the idea of taking advantage of a lesser skilled opponent reprehensible, and the idea of taking advantage of a drunk, high, or tired player absolutely repulsive! In the poker world these things are not only commonplace but are excused on moralistic grounds.

Regardless of how logical (there’s that word again) these arguments may be – “Nobody is putting a gun to their head to make them play,” or “if it wasn’t me someone else would be taking their money,”-to the average person a poker player appears no more ethical than a street-corner hustler.

Additionally, the skill factor in poker doesn’t resonate with the average person. We learn early on in our poker careers that we must unlearn what we know about competition when we play poker. So we have to be understanding as to how our arguments (from this illogical to most view-point) will be taken.