I enjoy playing poker. For money. Face-to-face against other humans. Now as I understand it, here in Texas, home poker games are not illegal as long as the “house” doesn’t take a cut. My problem is, not many of my friends like to play, and my living situation is not conducive to hosting a poker night.
As it happens, my city is littered with “underground” card rooms where I can play virtually 24 hours a day, in various games for various stake levels. Indeed the house always takes a cut, and most provide free food and drinks.
So, I’ve been playing in these illegal card rooms, but I do feel weird about it. I’m not really worried about my safety (most rooms have onsite security or are well established as safe places to play). I’m also not too worried about getting raided by the police, as they seem to look the other way (and some of the players are cops or ex-cops, and they don’t seem worried either). Generally, I’m a law abiding citizen, and, while I don’t really think there is anything wrong with the service these rooms are providing, there’s no doubt it is illegal activity.
So what do you think? Is this a victimless crime or is society suffering from my participation in this racket?
Pash
PS - Please don’t suggest on-line poker. I tried it and hated it (and lost my ass, too).
In my opinion, these laws are intended primarily to funnel people to government-controlled avenues of gambling. Breaking such a law is only unethical if either by doing so you risk harm to someone other than yourself or if breaking any legitimally-enacted law, regardless of its wisdom, is itself intrinsically unethical.
I’m sympathetic to the position that in a democratic society the law does have some inherent moral claim on us. In this case, though, it seems that the law is already widely ignored, in which case any additional harm caused by your choice to patronize one of these businesses should be minimal. If you think this minor knock to the fabric of society is outweighed by the net gain to you, personally, I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it.
As long as you are meeting your financial obligations and not compusively gambling I don’t see any ethical or moral problem with playing in these rooms. I also don’t see any ethical difference in whether these rooms are illegal or legal.
As far as the law goes I don’t see it as unethical. However, you’re paying money to organized criminals and they’re generally not the nicest people in the world. Just keep in mind how they might put your money to use.
I do the same thing man, and honestly I don’t feel guilty about it at all. The biggest issue I have is the risk of a raid, but as you said it’s quite unlikely. Furthermore, a lot of the houses I’ve played in are not so much organized crime but moreso just college students or low-end drug dealers. The only time I really felt any threat was this rather high staked game I ended up in (mind you that my def. of high-stakes is pretty low with my income) at a big drug house. As the same was going on you had deals going on all over the place, and since we all know dealers generally are armed…well, it was a bad situation.
All that said, yes it is illegal and yes raids can happen. The cops generally won’t bother with an underground house though unless you’re talking 10s-100s of thousands of dollars exchanged a night.
It’s also a great example of why Texas should legalize gambling, not only to solve this school finance crisis but to stop us from having to go to Shreveport to gamble legally and forcing us into underground houses to do it illegally and without a very long drive.
Playing poker on-line is techincally illegal too. The companies are typically based in places where gambling is legal but we’re not supposed to be playing when we’re in the U.S.
Just because something is illegal doesn’t make it unethical.
Ethics are something which are unique to each individual. My ethical code basically boils down to: “Don’t hurt people.” Gambling harms no one (except potentially yourself-- but that’s your business). If gambling doesn’t violate your code, then have at it.
Laws which have no purpose other than to legislate morality always make me angry.
I think the only real ethics question is whether you report your winnings as income? Is that a huge ethical problem? I would say no as long as it’s entertainment and doesn’t make up a sizable chunk of your income.
I’ll jump in on the other side and say that it is unethical to frequent “businesses” in which your money supports plainly illegal activity. I have no problem with friendly poker games among friends, or even with legal card clubs in various states (like California), but the places described are simply illegal casinos.
I can understand not obeying laws because of personal convictions, civil disobedience, and the like – but I can’t see what playing cards has to do with standing up for freedom or making the world a better place. But we’re not talking about fighting racism, injustice, or whatever – we’re talking about passing the time with an enjoyable, but illegal, activity. Simply because one prefers not to acknowledge the validity of a certain law is not a free moral pass to disobeying it.
You assume that laws are based upon ethics. That is not the case; at the least, laws and ethics do not track precisely. As a simple example, telling lies to someone to get them to sleep with you is unethical, but not illegal.
While I am not saying that playing illegal poker is ethical, I do reject your one-to-one equation of legality and ethics. IOW, to convince me, you have to address why playing poker in illegal card rooms is one of those instances where ethics and the law match up.
I never stated nor implied that ethics and the law tracked each other in a “one to one” manner. In fact, I quite clearly stated that there were circumstances under which laws and morality deviate: fighting racism, injustice, etc.
What I did say – perhaps not clearly enough – is that if one chooses to ignore the law, one should present a good reason for doing so. More specifically, supporting a criminal enterprise for no other apparent reason than one likes to play cards for money does not appear to pass a legal or ethical test. I think the ethics of the social contract imply that a person should generally follow the law, unless there’s a good reason not to.
In regard to my text that you quoted, do you believe it is ethical to violate laws simply because one would prefer that the law not exist? You seem to take issue with that.
You are equating illegal with immoral though. According to you if something is illegal then by default its immoral. I don’t agree with this contention and would like to know why you think it is so.
This is outright bizarre. I think I’m using terms precisely, and explaining myself as best I can, but folks keep reading my posts and saying that I said something that, upon my review, I quite clearly didn’t.
I didn’t say it is immoral to break laws. I said that there are cases in which it is ethical – and since you brought up the subject of morality – a moral imperative to break laws when justice is being perverted by laws.
Some people believe that it is immoral to play cards. I have never said that. In fact, I’ve called card playing an enjoyable activity. One can certainly think that playing cards is moral, but can be done in an unethical way. In my view, breaking the law simply to pass the time playing cards doesn’t seem like an awfully compelling reason to break the law. Disregarding the law on a whim doesn’t rate very high on my ethics meter.
I fail to see how contributing to a criminal enterprise constitutes ethical behavior. In my view, a strict code of ethics would include complying with the law, except in unusual circumstances. That doesn’t mean that one’s ethical code is the same as one’s legal obligations, it means that being a law abiding citizen is a part of an ethical life.
Indeed this is bizarre. You are contending that it is unethical to break the law without a compelling reason to do so. So, unless I am misunderstanding what you are saying its unethical to go 66 miles per hour if the speed limit is 65 if the only reason is becuase you feel like it. In this case you are claiming that its unethical to play cards becuase its illegal. In other words, if something is illegal it defaults to unethical. I don’t agree with that and am asking why you consider it to do so.
It;s illegal, which is not the same as immoral, nor unethical. However, I agree with Ravenman- your support of an illegal and thus unlicensed and non-taxpaying business is slightly unethical; and could be immoral, depending on your religous faith or ethos.
A friendly game at someones house is not unethical. If your morals preclude gambling (and you consider poker to be gambling) then of course it’s immoral.
ANYTHING can be immoral, and none of us (I assume none of us is your spiritual advisor) can tell you if it is or isn’t. However, ethics depend more upon what civilization you live in, thus yes, we can give you advice on that.
Supporting a business that doesn’t pay any taxes or license fees is unfair to businesses that do comply with the law. Thus, it is unethical.
Surely you can see a qualitative difference between a traffic infraction – like speeding or jaywalking – and a felony. One possible test (among many) of ethics is whether an act reflects on the trustworthiness of a person. If one routinely does business with criminals, I think that reflects poorly. OTOH, I think it would be silly for someone to say, “You better keep your eye on that one over there… he gets parking tickets!” :eek:
Again, trying to take someone else’s words out of my mouth, I don’t consider it to be unethical to play cards; I consider it unethical to support a criminal enterprise, and playing cards happens to be the means to do so in this case. If the enterprise was selling stolen TVs, I would also consider that to be unethical.
Do you think it is ethical to support any criminal enterprise that happens to exist? Are you maintaining that there is no connection whatsoever between the law and good ethics? Why don’t you explain your thinking on the OP?
My position is that the basic concept of “the rule of law” has value in itself that justifies some degree of deference to the law.
However, this sort of law forfeits that deference because it is so disjointed from community values (as evidenced by the widespread proliferation of illegal poker games) that the (specific) law itself breeds contempt for the law (in general). The moral responsibility for this lies with the legistators who passed, and then failed to repeal, the statute, not with the Teeming Millions who violate it.