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BGonline.org Forums
How many pro BG players?
Posted By: Robert Wachtel In Response To: How many pro BG players? (Joe Russell)
Date: Monday, 18 March 2013, at 5:14 p.m.
I 100% agree with you about the ethics of playing people live: you should only choose opponents for whom the money they may lose to you is an entertainment expense; and in any case where there is doubt about whether losing a certain amount would do serious harm to that person, you should OF COURSE refrain from playing them, allow them to stiff you, give them a substantial discount, or provide some other remedy to prevent that serious harm. By scrupulously following these guidelines, you should be able to ensure that you don't hurt anyone too badly.
I still maintain that, when you do any sort of betting on line (except, perhaps, on some backgammon sites) it is impossible to maintain a comparable ethical standard, exactly for the reasons you have stated: you can't select or control whom you play. This means that, try as you might, you are bound to do some serious harm to some people. The strictly ethical thing to do is not to bet anonymously, but to confine yourself to live situations or online ones (as, for example, on GG) where you know your opponents.
A more interesting example than sports betting, perhaps, is online poker. Here you are not part of a cast of millions, betting against other millions. You can play in tournaments, ring games, sit and goes, or heads-up freeze-outs. Although the same ethical principles apply in all of these forms (you don't know whom you are playing or their financial situation), let's take the latter case. A pro poker player wants to play a $2000 freeze-out. He advertises, and his challenge is accepted by someone. That someone turns out to be an awful player. He is also unlucky, and loses five freeze-outs in a row. Our pro has won 10K, but he has no idea what damage he has done. Was his opponent a multi-millionaire, just blowing off chump change while waiting for his champagne brunch -- or was he a desperado trying, with his last money, to save his house from foreclosure? The pro will never know: after the last freeze-out, the loser simply vanishes. Here it would be silly to say that the pro acted ethically, if by that we mean doing everything in his power to ensure that he did no serious harm. Were he that ethical, he would not play on line at all. He would devote his time and effort to seeking out live games with wealthy participants for whom that 10K would mean nothing at all.
You might not have noticed Tim Chow's post or my reply to it, in which I state pretty much the same thing but also elucidate a bit on my ideas about addiction and capitalism: http://www.bgonline.org/forums/webbbs_config.pl?read=139167
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