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.