Again, I would say that the moral onus belongs to the legislators who created that situation. (Admittedly, not all of the illegal gambling establishments would go “on the books” if it became legal, but I don’t think the OP would be unreasonable to assume that the places he frequents would be among the ones that would, given his description.)
There nothing unethical about playing poker in an ‘unlicensed’ club. The government likes to make all sorts of hyperbolic claims about how they are ‘protecting’ the players and keeping the game clean and fair, but in fact these laws are on the books simply to allow the government to have a monopoly on a very lucrative business.
I used to play in ‘illegal’ clubs routinely. Without exception, they were nicer to play in and much cheaper for the players than the local government-licensed casinos. The casino was raking $5 out of each pot, an amount that was unsustainable. Rake a reasonable amount, and the players can afford to continue playing indefinitely as long as they have a reasonable amount of skill. The ‘illegal’ clubs would only rake $1-$2 out of each pot, and it was always voluntary. We had a box that we kept near the table, and if you won a pot you were expected to throw some money to the box, and it was your discretion how much. The standard was a couple of bucks - less or none if it was a tiny pot, a little more if it was a monster pot.
A $5 rake in a small limit poker game is insane. If you deal 40 hands/hr, that’s $200/hr being raked by the casino. And it hurts the weaker players disproportionally, because they tend to play looser and win more pots.
I put ‘illegal’ in quotes, because the clubs I played in were ‘gray area’ clubs that skirted the rules to stay in business. For instance, the gaming commission rule for poker is that the ‘house’ could not rake the pot. In other words, you could not have a mandatory rake that went to the house in a public game. But these clubs were member only, and there was no ‘rake’ - just a voluntary donation to the club. A subtle difference perhaps, but one that allowed these clubs to operate legally for a long time - until the government decided to get into the poker business. Once they did, they found ways to shut down these clubs. They sent undercover agents in to play in these clubs, and these agents would do things like never give up a donation when they won a pot, to see if they could push the club owners into basically telling them, “donate or you’re out”, which would make it a rake. That never happened. They were allowed to play and never donate. So then they finally busted one club anyway because one of the dealers (who were also voluntary and lived on tips) got mad at one of the undercover guys and told him to not be so cheap. The gaming commission declared that the dealer was an employee of the house, and therefore represented it, and therefore it was a rake. And they shut the club down, confiscated all the money in play, and wrote up everyone in the place as being ‘found in a common gaming house’ - a note that went into a police record. This isn’t a crime, but it was meant as intimidation. We had a lot of professional people playing in these clubs, and they didn’t want any sort of record of this.
Anyway, the case was very weak, so the government tried to bury the defense in bullshit. They filed 1150 pages of documentation - more than in the Karla Homolka case - trying to drive up the defense costs. Eventually, the government lost. The club re-opened, and was immediately raided under the SAME pretext and shut down again. These were pure intimidation tactics. Tony Soprano would have approved.
Eventually, it became clear to everyone that no matter how they tried to straddle the law, the government was not about to tolerate competition in the gambling industry. Alberta now makes more money from gambling revenue than from income tax. Mess with them at your peril. So now all the private clubs are gone. And the poor poker players are being fleeced.
I know which side morality is on here, and it’s not the goverrnment’s.
That’s a rather weak analogy, in that stealing is a malum in se (immoral in and of itself) and playing cards for money is merely malum prohibitum (illegal, but not immoral except insofar as one considers breaking the law to be immoral).
To expand on my previous position somewhat, I think that a certain deference is due to the law. Laws against acts that are malum in se deserve the most deference (in addition to the prohibition imposed by one’s own moral values). Laws that are purely in the malum prohibitum category deserve somewhat less deference, as their only justification is that they express the will of the body politic. When a law of the latter type is widely flouted, then it deserves no deference whatsoever, as it clearly does not address the will of the people – indeed, such a law deserves active contempt for eroding the rule of law generally.
This is what we did, although if you put it under a microscope, it might prove to be technically illegal also.
A big group of us starting playing texas holdem. We would meet up at our local pub, then decided to go to someone’s house and play. The owner of the bar noticed when we did this, he lost a lot of money. Not only from the loss of our beer sales, but when his core group of regulars weren’t there, other regulars that stopped in didn’t stay long.
He owned the house next door. He set up some card tables, bought some chips, and supplied us with some beer in a cooler. He didn’t take a cut of what we gambled, or charge a fee to get in. He left it up to us to reimburse him for the beer, like friends do if one goes out and buys a case, everyone chips in towards it.
By doing this, when any of us dropped out early in the game, we were likely to just go back to the bar and wait for new game to start. We bought our beers there, and kept some of the other regulars from leaving. And when we were all done playing, we all went back to the bar, instead of just staying at the friend’s house.
The illegal part might be that we paid more for the beer than the owner actually paid for it. He may have used beer that was bought from a distributor to be sold in the bar, or maybe he just went down the street and bought it at liquor store. But technically I don’t think he was actually selling us the beer, more providing it. We chose to reimburse him for it, and gave him a little extra for his trouble. It could get a little sticky since he does have a liquor license for the bar and not the house. But we were generally with in the laws I think. His intent was not to make money off of our game, or to make money selling us beer. He just wanted to keep us from leaving for the whole night. In our case, I don’t see how it harmed anyone. But we may have broken some laws along the way somewhere in there, I don’t worry about it though.
Hypothetical scenario: tomorrow, your state legislature enacts a law making the consumption of Mountain Dew a felony. It has been determined, you see, that Mt. Dew is dangerously high in caffeine and sugar, and should be banned from general use for the good of the populous. Now…provide me with a compelling reason, other than pure and arbitrary preference, why you should drink Mountain Dew when there are so many other, more healthful beverages available. Assuming you can’t (and if you can, I’d like to hear it), does this render the Mountain Dew Ban a morally-justified law? Would you consider it unethical to break it?
Circular logic. How is it unethical to support a “criminal” enterprise which is only criminal due to an unethical law? The only way this holds water is if you are in fact claiming that law == morality, which you have already claimed you are not.
What if the moon is made of green cheese? :rolleyes: "What ifs’ are specious and meaningless questions.
I think that is a recipe for mob rule, if the legitimacy of laws is subject to those who are willing to break it. Who speaks for the people who want to keep something illegal? If a law deserves to be abandoned simply because many people break it, then how do you judge the number of people who’d rather keep the law around, so are NOT breaking it? Around my general area, there’s been fever-pitch debates on allowing slot machines in DC and Maryland. Neither proposal has been enacted, even though I’m quite confident that there are many underground gamblers in both states who would be just happy if gambling (in whatever form) was legalized. Why why only pay attention to the voice of those who oppose whatever law?
Thank you, however, for a very thoughful post. You state your case very well, and I am thinking about it.
Roland: That’s such a bizarre hypothetical that I can’t imagine it ever happening, so in the context of the law and ethics, it’s pretty hard to form a considered opinion so unlikely to happen. Let’s stick to the ethics of cardplaying. Besides, one can have differing views on whether Mountain Dew, marijuana, or cardplaying should be legal, or whether those laws are moral, so a person’s view on one shouldn’t be construed to apply to others. (That being said, I hold that a hypotheical law on the first is silly, I do not support legalization of marijuana, and I think legal card clubs are just fine so long as the people in the locality are okay with it.)
And as far as being an ethical law, what rule of ethics would hold that it is unacceptable to ban gambling of various sorts? You seem to be approaching this from an angle of liberty, civil rights, and justice, which the OP never mentioned whatsoever. He just said he liked playing cards, not that he was out to change the world. In any case, I question the value of justifying illegal activity if the lawbreaking is done in secret. Seems to me that civil disobedience must be a public act if it is to have any value at all.
You know, now that I think about it, I can think of circumstances under which playing cards in an illegal club is ethical. If someone needed to raise $20,000 within 24 hours, or the local orphanage would be closed, I wouldn’t have a problem with that person taking a shot at making it big one night in a card club. But I don’t that the simply passing the time is a good ethical reason for breaking the law.
And I think your accusation of circular logic makes no sense whatsoever. As I’ve said before, perhaps twice so far, I think one standard idea of ethical conduct is generally to follow laws, unless there is good reason not to. What’s circular about that?
In response to the first, yes, such a law is unlikely in the extreme. This does not make it any less of a valid comparison. You are partially correct when you say I am viewing the matter as a civil liberties issue, in that I see no other way to classify a law that restricts gambling (or bans Mountain Dew, or any other legislature that aims to protect people from themselves). And what does it matter whether he’s out to change the world or not? The ultimate impact of his cardplaying is irrelevant to its morality, unless of course you’re arguing from the standpoint that the ends justify the means. (Please argue that standpoint. It’s fun.)
The issue at hand is whether or not you believe that the activity in question – gambling, Mountain Dew, masturbation, doin’ the Hustle – is in violation of your own personal ethics. If it is not, then the only reason for you to view it as unethical in light of discovering it to be illegal is if you somehow attach legality to morality. Now that I think it over again, you are correct that “circular logic” is perhaps not an accurate term for what you are doing here. Perhaps “blatant contradiction” serves more aptly. You are saying that while activity may not be inherently immoral, it happens to be illegal, therefore to engage in it without a compelling reason to do so would be immoral. There are two standpoints that would justify this. The first is that performing the activity without a compelling reason, legal or otherwise, is unethical. That does not seem to be what you’re upholding here. The second is that legality and ethics are somehow united. You have purported, multiple times, not to believe this. Thus, you are being contradictory. And, if you’ll forgive me for answering your question with a question, what rule of ethics is it that allows you to condone the prohibition of an activity you find nothing wrong with?
Where you and I seem to be differing on this is that you believe that law, while perhaps not being equivalent to morality, does in fact carry some inherent moral responsibility such that it is unethical to violate it without some preexisting ethical conundrum of a higher order. I, on the other hand, hold that law in and of itself carries no moral weight whatsoever except that which the individual chooses to impart upon it. Therefore, in violating a law by engaging in an activity which one does not believe is unethical to begin with, one is by definition not in violation of their own morality. (They are, of course, still in violation of the law, and must accept personal responsibility for the consequences of same, but that’s not the discussion). Law and morality – or ethics, if you prefer – are not only seperate, but entirely so.
See above. Also, I must ask the intent behind this last, as it is crucial to my understanding of your viewpoint. Are you saying that ethicality is, at least in part, a function of intent (“By playing the poker, I was seeking to do good, therefore it is ethical”), or are you instead holding that the consequences of the action are what should be taken into account (“By playing the poker, I succeeded in doing good, therefore it is ethical”)?
You know, I’ve heard this rationale dozens of times before, and never really understood it. It usually goes; “Organized crime takes the profit from gambling and uses it to fund drugs/prostitution/.” My problem with this is that drugs and prostitution don’t need subsidies to stay solvent.
Do people think that organized crime says; “I’d sure like to sell drugs to schoolkids, but there’s no money in it, so I’ll have to run a bookie operation to support it.”? If selling drugs didn’t pay for itself, drugs wouldn’t be sold period. There are plenty of people selling drugs without gambling organizations on the side.
Avoiding that problem is one reason for applying this principle only to cases of malum prohibitum. Allowing this unpopularity standard to apply to malum in se laws (e.g. the old Jim Crow standard under which it was OK to lynch “uppity” blacks) would indeed be “mob rule”.
Even among people who obey a law, there are gradations of support or non-support. For instance, I would gladly tell the cops what I might happen to know about somebody evading vehicle registration fees, but if they were looking for somebody’s pot stash I’d make Sergeant Shultz look like Sherlock Holmes (notwithstanding the fact that I don’t break either type of laws myself).
Thanks.
I think you’re getting wrapped around the axle and making my view much more complicated than it is.
The motivations of people are at the heart of ethics. A rich man stealing a loaf of bread because he’s cheap is unethical, a starving man stealing a loaf for survival is ethical.
You keep saying that I oppose card playing as an activity. I don’t. I opposee putting money in the pockets of criminals, whether they’re petty theives or mob bosses. That, along with flouting the law for no higher purpose, are the two key problems I see.
For a harmonious and peaceful society, I think it is preferable for people to respect and follow the law, except in extraordinary circumstances. In my view, the law is one source of right conduct among others (I can’t see the Bible or the Diamond Sutra telling people not to park in handicapped spaces at the mall). If one does not regard this as so, in my view, they place themselves as being outside or above society. I don’t believe allowing for unlimited moral passes to break the law on a whim is good for society.
A question I tried to post earlier, but got eaten: what does everyone think about cops frequenting these illegal card clubs? Does anyone believe that the ethics of cops doing this is different than for private individuals?
Read “Freakonomics : A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything”
by Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner . Low level drug dealers are barely making a living- in fact many of them still live with their Mothers!
Drug sales (or whatever) are not a *dependable *source of income- due to police intervention and gang warfare. Thus, a smart and successful gang has several/many sources of illegal (and sometime even legal) income. Selling drugs doesn’t always pay- so then if you have gambling or “protection” etc, you can have a source of income during those periods when it doesn’t. The Mafia, for example, has many sources of Illegal income.
The only difference I see is that it amplifies the effect of breeding contempt for the law. Since I blame that on the legislators who pass laws that are supported by neither moral necessity (a law that has that is, by definition, malum in se) nor the true will of the people (a law that has that would not be routinely flouted), I don’t consider this to be a reflection on the cops’ ethics.