One of the most frequent things I hear in defense of the game of poker is that “it isn’t gambling.” That is even the legal defense in many cases where someone was arrested due to an illegal poker game. They contend that only gambling is illegal, and since poker is a game of skill, it’s okay.

Before I go any farther, I will say something that should go without saying: I like poker. I support poker. I support online gambling of all sorts being legalized everywhere that it is currently banned. I wouldn’t write for Gambling Review if I was anti-poker. However, just because I support poker doesn’t mean I’m willing to perpetuate the myth that it is not gambling. It is.

Gamble (verb):

1 a: to play a game for money or property

b: to bet on an uncertain outcome

2  : to stake something on a contingency: take a chance

The above definition was provided by Merriam-Webster. The game of poker is a game of skill, unlike slots. Players can use bluffing and strategy to increase their chances of winning, but it’s still a chance. Just because you have skill doesn’t mean you will win. After all, your opponents probably have skill as well. Also, though you decide what to do with your hands, you have no control over what cards you draw. Your cards are determined by random chance. You can still win with bad cards by bluffing, but you are more likely to win with good cards, which means that chance affects your odds.

You don’t even need to take it that far to prove that poker is gambling, though. Just look at the above definition. Poker is a game that you play for money. When you place your wagers, you are betting on an uncertain outcome, because anyone at that table could win. You are also staking your money on a contingency, which is a future event that is possible but cannot be predicted with certainty.

Princeton University’s dictionary, WordNet, defines gamble as to “take a risk in the hope of a favorable outcome.” Any time you play poker for real money you are taking a risk – because your opponents may be more skilled or may be dealt better cards – in the hopes of a positive outcome: winning money.

I can go on and get definitions from a hundred other sources and the result will still be the same: poker is gambling. Nowhere in those definitions does it say “unless the game requires skill.” You could certainly argue that the skill element makes poker less of a gamble than slots, and I would agree, but that’s not the point.

Playing poker for money is gambling. There’s nothing wrong with that. When poker players try to legitimize their game by distancing themselves from “gambling games,” they are in effect calling other gambling games illegitimate. By trying to remove the stigma from poker, they are placing more of a stigma on craps, roulette and blackjack. All casino games involve gambling and that includes poker. The sooner we all admit to that, the sooner we can all agree that it’s okay to gamble.

College students are finding new incentive to make good grades – they can make money. Using monetary reward for getting good grades is nothing new. Parents have been using the “I’ll give you $5 for straight A’s” technique ever since there were report cards. This new system, though, uses online gambling.

Ultrinsic, a website that allows students to bet on their grades, is getting some negative attention from schools and positive attention from the students. According to their website, Ultrinsic “provides incentives to students for academic achievement” and “dedicates itself to motivating students to improve in their grades.”

Here’s how it works: Students create an account with the website and upload transcripts and other proof of their academic history. They then send the website their upcoming class schedule. Based on their academic history, the website calculates odds of the student reaching certain grades. The students choose target grades for their classes and how much money they want to invest. At the end of the semester, the students send in their transcript and if they reached their target grades, they win money.

The website is new – still in beta mode – and has a growing roster that could include 200 universities by the spring. No schools are directly involved, though, and some administrations aren’t too happy about the site. Some say that a quest for knowledge should be its own reward. Others think it’s bad to have students bet money on a target grade, putting more pressure on themselves. Still others believe that use of the website amounts to online gambling, which could make it illegal in the United States.

Everyone agrees that it’s difficult to motivate students and welcomes tools to accomplish that. However, some worry that the site will develop gambling problems in college students. More realistic opponents worry that having money riding on the grades will lead to an increase in cheating.

There is not even an agreement about whether the actions taking place on the website are gambling. Judah Guber, the CEO of Ultrinsic, states that the website is not an online gambling site at all. According to Guber, it’s not gambling because it involves skill. This isn’t students betting money on someone else, as with sports betting. They are putting money on themselves and have the power to affect their own outcome with their skill. If they need an A, they can study, get tutoring, and do other things to accomplish that goal.

So is this website just a supercharged version of your parents giving you a few bucks for getting A’s? You decide.

“I understand that America is a mess right now. Unemployment and the economy are in a dismal state. It is my number one priority to solve these problems and fix the economy. But people, don’t spend money! Save it! Stuff it under your mattress! Keep it away from the greedy banks and don’t spend it on frivolous things! Hoard your money because you’re going to need it!”

Obviously, saying something like that would be terrible for the economy and is the exact opposite of what the country needs. It’s also a loose paraphrase of the words of President Barack Obama. Throughout his year in the White House and even before, Obama has made it clear that he’s not a fan of capitalism, taking every opportunity to portray businesses as greedy, people as being in need of handouts, and the government being responsible for taking care of the people. That would be fine, except that he is the president of a country that has a Representative Republic system of government and a capitalist form of economy. His attitudes are not only counterproductive, but also downright dangerous for both.

The most recent of many examples of this is Obama’s criticism of Las Vegas and people who visit the city. Obama recently said that people saving money for college shouldn’t waste their money on gambling in Vegas. Last February, he made a similar remark about companies that received TARP funds, saying that it was irresponsible for them to take trips to the Sin City.

It’s no surprise that an anti-capitalist wouldn’t realize that trips to conferences and junkets in places like Las Vegas are an important part of the process of obtaining and retaining clients. But at least in that case he was criticizing the spending of money by companies that had received money from taxpayers. In his recent comments, he criticized private citizens for spending their own money.

Lawmakers and businessmen in Vegas are understandably furious and many have vowed to support whoever runs against Obama in 2012. They recognize that his comments and policies are bad for Las Vegas, the state of Nevada, and the country as a whole.

While the entire country has a dismal unemployment rate of 10% — you know, the catastrophic number that Obama said we would reach if he didn’t get to pass his “stimulus” bill – Nevada is even worse, at 13%. You should also note that both are conservative estimates that don’t count people with part-time jobs, those who have given up looking for work, and those who work on a temporary project. And with unemployment that bad and Nevada’s tourism industry struggling, the President of the United States, the most powerful man in the country (with the exception of George Soros and Al Gore), is telling people not to visit Las Vegas and not to spend money in their casinos, which just so happens to be the biggest industry they have in the state. Real responsible, Mr. President.

People of the United States and the rest of the world, spend your money as you see fit. You should of course be responsible, but if you have the disposable income to take a vacation, I can think of no place better than Vegas. Of course, as I’ve said countless times, you should never wager money that you can’t afford to lose, but if you can afford to lose it, Las Vegas would be happy to have it.

Professional athletes are rich and spoiled. If there’s one thing they like more than making a ton of money, it’s flaunting that money. That can include buying a new stretch Hummer limo made entirely of 24-karat gold, residing in a house that rivals Charles Foster Kane’s Xanadu, or just going around in strip clubs throwing $100 bills at people. Oftentimes it also includes gambling.

The Gilbert Arenas story has once again linked gambling with professional athletes. Many teams, in response, have banned their players from gambling. Instead, it seems like they shouldn’t hire athletes that they can’t trust to play a friendly game and not end up pointing guns at each other (if that even happened). The reports of what happened keep changing, with the most recent version I heard being that it was all a misunderstanding and that they were joking around about shooting each other over a gambling debt. Maybe teams shouldn’t hire athletes who don’t know that you shouldn’t joke about gun violence while wielding loaded guns. Just thinking out loud here…

There are people out there that are going to blame the situation, which resulted in the indefinite suspension of the superstar guard, on gambling. They will say that if you don’t let the players gamble, these things won’t happen. These are the same people who think whenever someone is shot and killed it is the fault of the gun instead of the shooter. Both arguments have the same problem (well, then anti-gun argument has a lot of problems): It ignores individual responsibility.

We at Gambling Review have always said that people need to gamble responsibly. That means to never bet money you can’t afford to lose, never bet money that would lead to you owing someone, always pay off your bets (to avoid gambling debt), and treat it like a fun game. If you’re not having fun, to the point where you feel like bringing guns into the mix, then you shouldn’t be doing it. Banning athletes from gambling won’t keep them out of trouble, unless you also ban them from drinking, driving, going to strip clubs, going to dance clubs, bachelor parties, and whatever else they like to do for fun.

The point is this: Professional athletes need to be responsible, just like everybody else. Some say they are wrong to throw their money away by gambling it rather than donating it to a charity. Maybe. If so, though, isn’t spending money on anything nonessential irresponsible? Is it irresponsible to buy a big high-definition TV? You don’t need TV at all and even if you want to watch television, there are cheaper sets out there. What about a new car? There are plenty of clunkers out there that you could buy for less (except those destroyed by the government). Why waste money on a house when there are plenty of cheap trailers out there? Why go to Disney World when you can have fun skipping stones across a pond?

Yes, I know that there is a line out there where wasting money is wrong. Why should Michael Jordan bet $1 million on a golf hole while impoverished children in the Chicago slums can’t afford to wear his Nike sneakers? Be that as it may, a person has a right to use their money as they choose. If you want to satisfy both urges, the urge to gamble and the urge to help people, there are lots of charity gambling tournaments out there. I think hitting those is a great idea for millionaire athletes with plenty of money to spend.

So a priest walks into a poker tournament and wins $100,000. That’s not a joke, but when you first started reading the sentence you probably thought it was going to be. If it was, though, I probably would have started it with, “A priest and a rabbi…”

This, however, is no joke. A South Carolina priest, Reverend Andrew Trapp, recently entered the PokerStars.net Million Dollar Challenge and took a shot at the $1 million prize. His church, St. Michael Catholic Church, is trying to raise $5.5 million to build a new church and is nearing that goal. Trapp, who is an assistant pastor, received permission from his pastor and also from the Charleston bishop.

Since it was a free tournament, Trapp contends that he wasn’t really gambling. He also stressed that in his view, activities such as gambling and drinking aren’t sinful if they are done in moderation. The key is to be smart and not overdo it (which is pretty much my opinion as well). “It’s a question of moderation, just like anything else,” Trapp said. “We believe it’s fine to enjoy a beer or a glass of wine, but not to abuse it and get drunk.”

Trapp had a lot of fun at the tournament and likely challenged the preconceived notions some of the other players had about priests. “At the very least, even if I didn’t win any prize money, I was hoping it would help people to see that priests can have fun and be normal people and hopefully get a little bit of a fun twist on the image of the priesthood,” Trapp said.

The tournament, believe it or not, was televised on FOX after the football games. Yeah, I know. I didn’t see it, either. I imagine some of the players thought it was unfair competing against a priest. After all, there’s a good chance that God was on his side. Is it cheating if God performs a miracle and gives you the winning hand? I guess not. In any case, Trapp didn’t win the grand prize, but he did bring back $100,000 for the church, which is now a little less than $1 million short of their goal.

Moscow officials are concerned that a recent ban on gambling in Russia has led to a rise in online gambling. In fact, as hundreds of legitimate casinos have been closed down, many internet cafes have sprung up. Worry not, though. The authorities are doing their best to stamp that out, by raiding illegal casinos, internet cafes and other establishments that cater to those who believe in doing what they want with their own money.

Roughly a third of the casinos once in existence currently stand in Russia, and those now only sell lottery tickets, except for the few that are getting raided and shut down. Is that trampling on freedom? Well, historically speaking, that’s not exactly a Russian concern. They would be concerned, of course, if the government found they are missing out on a lot of money. However, Moscow Deputy Mayor Sergei Baidakov, who I like to call Ungle Serg, stated that the ban on gambling has only caused tax revenues to drop by 0.5%. “It’s nil compared to the benefits to the health of the nation.”

Right, their concern is for the health of the nation! I keep overlooking that. Maybe it’s because their Prime Minister is an ex-KGB agent, they have a history of starving their own people, murdering political dissenters (or putting them in the gulags), silencing debate, conquering other countries, and denying their people basic civil liberties. Hey, Russia, if you are concerned for the health of the nation, here’s something you should give a try: freedom.

Yeah, I know. Believe it or not, people enjoy having it. Maybe that’s why, despite your beautiful white winters and charming hospitality, you get considerably fewer immigrants than, say, America for example.

But of course Moscow isn’t really concerned for the health of the nation, at least not in any rational way. But that is the problem with a big government like they have in Russia. Big government does not see people as individuals, but as a mass of resources to fuel said government. Sure, individuals want to be able to criticize Vladimir Putin without being blacklisted. Sure, individuals would like to vote in an election that has not been carefully engineered by the government. Sure, individuals would like to protest without disappearing off the face of the earth. Sure, individual laborers would like to be treated better than indentured servants. Sure, individuals would like to be able to spend their own money on a game in a casino without being imprisoned. But when you look at society as a whole, does it really matter what those individuals want? Whether they’re happy or not, they will pay their taxes and do their work (both out of fear of imprisonment), so their health, their happiness, is of no concern to Moscow.

Barack Obama is a polarizing figure to say the least. When he showed up on the scene seemingly out of nowhere, he became all the rage. This despite the fact that he only beat Blair Hull in the Illinois Senate Democratic Primary by having David Axelrod get Hull’s divorce records unsealed and then using that information to spread a lie that he hit his ex-wife, and the fact that he only won the Senate because Republican Jack Ryan withdrew from the race after, you guessed it, his divorce records were unsealed and the lie was spread that he tried to have sex with his own wife at a nightclub (Yes, folks, that was the scandal that destroyed Ryan’s career). Despite all of that, when Obama announced his candidacy for president, the media, college students and professors, and other people who listen to the media and college professors believed that he can walk on water. If Obama is The Chosen One, surely he would be a great poker player, right?

If there is one thing Obama has it is charisma. His public persona is that of a cool, confident leader, in spite of his weak grasp of politics and economics. His cool demeanor would serve him well at a poker table. Obama is also used to convincingly lying to the people, which would serve him well when bluffing. On the downside, Obama is not nearly as convincing or charismatic when he doesn’t have a teleprompter and planted questions, so he would be wise to pick a strategy ahead of time and stick to it. No going off script.

As Ricky pointed out in his Sarah Palin article, having a good nickname is important for poker players. President Obama has gone by a few different names. Back when he was hanging out with communists and drug dealers, he went by Barry. Some people call him by his middle name, Hussein, but his supporters are always quick to call those people racists for trying to make him sound like a Muslim, as if Barack and Obama are names as American as apple pie. Other names that he goes by, though unofficially, are The Messiah and The Anti-Christ, depending on who you talk to.

Good poker players are great at math, and with the way the national debt is rising and the amount of money being spent, Obama should certainly be good with numbers. A good poker player is also secretive, which certainly applies to Obama, who blocked virtually every document about his personal and professional life from being released to the public. Good poker players are also very disciplined, and I can only commend Obama’s restraint for never strangling Joe Biden after any of his attacks of verbal diarrhea. Good poker players have to be accepting of the fact that sometimes they will lose, and I’m not sure how Obama would handle that, because he doesn’t have a whole lot of experience with adversity. Hopefully, his opponents won’t get too annoyed at him gloating “I won” every time he scoops the chips toward him.

Most of the above skills seem to be in his favor, but the number one reason Barack Obama would be good at poker is because he is very good at taking other people’s money.