Asking for a Raise
The Issue
Your country’s tough anti-gambling stance has shut down most casino games, but now a coalition of former card players are asking for your permission to play their high-stakes poker games. Their reasoning? They say poker is a game of skill, not chance.
The Debate
1. “Hard evidence shows that skill matters more than luck,” explains Mitchell Coren-Victoria, a former pro-player turned TV celebrity. “It’s been demonstrated that the top centile of players over a six-month period are more than twelve times as likely as average players to repeat the feat in the following six months. That’s more statistical consistency than most sports players. Poker isn’t gambling, but a test of mathematics and quick wits. Ante up, Leader, and let this game of skill be played.”
2. “Honestly, gambling as a whole is all about smart play and clever tabletalk,” observes Adele Sheldonson, a former casino owner. “The misplaced moral puritanism behind gambling restriction fails to recognise that gaming is a sign of a healthy and active mind. I think it’s time you folded on this, and let people gamble again. The economy improves, people get to have fun, I make a little money. Everybody wins!”
3. “It’s always so tempting to backslide into sin, isn’t it?” murmurs your uncle, staring into the middle distance at a passing flock of sheep and licking his lips for a moment, before snapping back to the present. “Restricting gambling wasn’t enough. You should make temptation harder to find. Ban playing cards. Ban dice. Ban poker chips. Anything that might tempt people to gamble, ban it.”
4. “Boss, you’ve got to see the game behind the game here,” interjects your anti-gambling chief from the shadows. “There’s three rules poker players should follow. First rule is that there’s always a hidden agenda. Turn the tables on these ‘former’ poker players, and bring them in for forceful interrogation so we can persuade them to really show their hand. It’s not enough to just ban paraphernalia — we need to scare these gambling interests into submission. Second rule, of course, is that you also shouldn’t tell anybody everything. Let’s keep this action quiet so that we can maintain our advantage over the secret gamblers.”