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OT - Poker Ethics?

Posted By: Phil Simborg
Date: Monday, 24 October 2011, at 2:12 p.m.

In Response To: OT - Poker Ethics? (Stick)

If I bet you that your 6-2 hitting play is wrong, and you say you would be happy to be me, and I said, "I will only bet you if you tell me that you have not run this" and you knowlingly lie to me, you are cheating me if we bet. You are being dishonest and misleading. There is no game here or set of rules other than morality and ethics, and unless you are specifically in a venue or competition, like poker, where part of the game is to deceive, and where lying is not prohibited, it is simply wrong to lie and take my money. The same is true in business: if you sell someone something and you lie about it, you can be sued and will be responsible for reparations.

Now, if I say I want to bet you that your 6-2 hitting play is wrong and you agree to bet, and you know you are right because you have run the position, you are not doing anything wrong to bet me at all if I don't ask you if you have run it. You are willing to bet me because you are sure of your play, and you are sure because you have run the position.

Now, if this occurs while we are playing on line and you have just run the position while we are playing, that is something different...as my assumption is that you are not cheating or using a bot while we are playing, but of course, anyone who would do this would also lie. But in that case, even if I didn't ask if you had just run it, you would be stealing from me if you did run it, didn't tell me, and still bet me, even if I didn't ask.

I don't believe this is kind of situation is difficult. If you lie, mislead, or without information that is "assumed" to be a factor in the wager, it is unethical. If you are "tricking" your opponent into a bet in a manner that is misleading, this is unethical. Again, I use the example of my betting you Green Bay will not win tomorrow, and when we find out they play on Monday night instead of tomorrow, I demand payment. Would you pay me? Intentional deception is unethical and you should not be rewarded for it.

I believe the same is true in backgammon, but unfortunately, we have no set guidelines or rules to specifically deal with this issue, and it is a terribly gray area. I don't think someone should be able to intimidate, mislead, trick or fool their opponent into taking or dropping a cube, yet in many ways, players do things like this all the time. Because our rules don't cover this, it's not necessarily illegal (unless a tournament director decides to make it illegal if it violates his personal code of good sportsmanship), but it still is clearly, in my opinion, not good sportsmanship and not what most of us want the game to be.

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