I approve the message from Chefguy, our best friend and big toe.
Yeah, I don’t get the thinking of your threads as gallows humor. Death pools yes. Humor often relies on discomfort … be it about sexuality, death, or things that disgust us. Inappropriateness in the extreme but safely extreme is sometimes why something seems funny. If the subject is too personal it may not be safely extreme; celebrities are rarely too personal. I don’t play but that’s just my individual mileage and interests varying.
Your threads? Other than that the “prizes” have in the past had a bit of silliness to them (able to have “winner of …” under your name) there’s nothing funny.
ETA: while I am not participating in your current thread I want to thank you for your creating these threads, having played in the past.
It’s a game with an element of chance (a presently unknown result) and a prize (a ranking). That’s gambling so far as I am concerned, the same way an office pool on a sporting event is gambling.
So you’re not against the dark humor, but you’re totally against gambling? Of any form? That’s why you started this thread? If so, why specify the thread and not gambling in general?
What have I said that supports this conclusion?
Pretty sure that there is some source for the quote that “a gentlemen’s bet is no bet at all.” but not going to bother to look. It’s a silly hill to care about (don’t want to say “die on”; it may offend! 
) but when there is nothing of value lost by betting (and gaining bragging rights here as a prize are not worthy anything either) calling it a gamble is a big stretch.
But okay let’s accept gambling with bragging rights as the purse to win and nothing to lose, except maybe some ribbing if your prediction is way way off with no logic to support it. My position still stands: a useful format for wonks and wonk wannabes.
No one would consider a ‘ranking’ to be equivalent to a gambling reward. Baseball has an element of chance, and there’s ranking all over the place. Unless money is changing hands based on predictions of rankings, it’s not gambling.
Gambling has always been defined as putting up something of value to lose against something of value to win on a game based primarily on chance. A ‘ranking’ does not meet the requirements unless your rank comes with a valuable payout.
A ranking is not a prize. There is no prize for winning this contest. It says that explicitly, two times, in the OP of the thread you haven’t taken the trouble to read.
The idea that a ranking is a prize so therefore it’s gambling would make every competition gambling. Or an unknown result and a prize equal gambling is even more ridiculous.
Willie Wilson finished a distant 3rd in the 2020 Illinois senate race with 237,699. 3rd is a ranking, so I guess senate races are gambling.
Cuba earned a silver medal in the 2022 U-15 Baseball World Cup.
Unknown result: check
Prize: check
The 2022 U-15 Baseball World Cup is gambling.
Do you see how ridiculous you sound?
Hmm. I don’t agree with the OP at all, but those are all direct participants and thus don’t count as a game. Someone not participating in the competition has to get the ranking, by what e has written.
Does @Acsenray think charity matches are gambling?
~Max
As I stated repeatedly, it is in the form of gambling. It doesn’t matter to me whether it meets a legal definition of gambling. I’m not proposing some kind of legal action, so the legal definition is irrelevant. It is in the form of a type of gambling, so it still carries the same disrespect of the underlying event, in my view.
Again, I refer to my prior examples. Would you consider that kind of behavior disrespectful or distasteful? To me, this is of the same type of behavior, differing only in degree of disrespectfulness or distaste.
Examples:
Death-pool betting: when my mother was gravely ill, I bet her $100 that she would outlive QEII (they were similar age and Mom loved her). There was obviously no money actually on the line. I would have lost $100 if there was. Was I making light of my mother’s condition? Yes, but she had a sense of humor and it made her laugh (good catharsis for us both). Was I taking the death of Mom, or QEII lightly? No, I was devastated when Mom died and saddened when QEII died. It was a joke bet made to break the tension.
Political outcome betting: In 2016, I bet my kids $100 that if Trump won, it would result in the fall of Western Civilization. There was no money actually on the line—it was a faux bet understood by all. Did I really think the fall of Western Civilization would occur? Of course not. It was a joke bet to make a point, nothing more.
It’s not. An element of chance with a prize isn’t gambling. That’s a “game of chance”.
Or any other kind of definition aside from one you made up?
All gambling involves risk. All of it. That’s the very definition and what makes it different from other games of chance. That’s why if something is risky, people will call it “a gamble” even when there are no games involved. There must be the potential for you to lose something of consequence for it to be gambling.
You’re speaking a different language than everyone else. I don’t mean everyone on this board, I mean everyone everywhere.
It is not.
It doesn’t meet the legal definition of gambling. It doesn’t meet the common every day definition of gambling. It only meets the nonsensical definition of gambling that is unique to you.
This post is dumb. And even if I resolve all the typos in the way that is most favorable to you, it’s somehow dumber.
You should feel bad for posting it.
The OP reminds me of those whose objection to playing cards (since they were used for gambling) necessitated the invention of the game of Rook.
I find the Death Pools to be distasteful although I’ve never really read one so actually I just have a vague idea that I’d find it distasteful based on the premise. It’s really easy not to read them so it’s not a problem for me.
The Senate prediction thread isn’t people being happy that they did well even though there was a horrible result. It’s seeing how well politics nerds can predict an outcome based on available information. In the lead up to the election, they are explaining their thought process. People who consistently do well can use their abilities to help effect good outcomes in the future. How is this bad?
You yourself label it as a “pool,” so you acknowledge it as being in the form of a gambling game.
So now “pool” equals “gambling”? You do you, you crazy goofball.
Moderators, I’d like to request a title change for this thread. Something like…
“Why do Dopers start threads, that I refuse to read, with words in the title that remind me of gambling, concerning matters I consider grave?”
I don’t know why I’m going down this definition of gambling rabbit hole with you. My thread is not gambling, but even it was it doesn’t trivialize the upcoming election. Gambling is serious and elections are serious, so gambling on elections makes the outcome of the election more important to the gambler than it otherwise would be not less.
Gambling on elections, or at least trying to be any good at gambling on elections, forces the bettor to put aside emotions and desires, and focus on the real world issues that influence elections. It requires a deeper understanding of how elections.
My, very much not gambling, thread is also an effort to more deeply understand elections. I want to understand them better because they are grave matters.
But I guess that doesn’t matter to you because the title of the thread contains a word that reminds you of gambling.
I no longer believe you are speaking in good faith. For some reason, my very mild expression of distaste has made you very defensive.
You seem to believe tons of crazy shit, so I’m not overly concerned about this particular belief of yours.