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500K bet on rock paper scissors ruled invalid by Quebec court

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Re: 500K bet on rock paper scissors ruled invalid by Quebec court

#201

Post by woofcat »

edflsafoiewq wrote: post #162
Alupis wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And this is why gambling should be banned How do you propose to enforce this? If these two people had simply gambled the same way, and the loser took out the mortgage and paid the winner, nobody would even know. It's illegal to gamble where I live, yet every year my friends and I place bets on major sporting events. The solution to problems isn't always more government. Particularly when the proposed laws are total…

> How do you propose to enforce this? Don't legally recognize gambling debts. If people lose a bet they can pay it if they want to, but the law wouldn't recognize or enforce the debt. This appears to be basically what happened in this case anyway.

>Don't legally recognize gambling debts. If people lose a bet they can pay it if they want to, but the law wouldn't recognize or enforce the debt.

This is how you get people with broken legs. As much as I dislike the payday loan places... they largely eliminated loan sharks.

You have legal gambling to keep it out of the hands of organized crime who will collect with illegal methods... not through the courts.

Re: 500K bet on rock paper scissors ruled invalid by Quebec court

#202

Post by tapland »

gruez wrote: post #19
tapland wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A nontrivial fraction of people form their selection when _starting to_ move their hand down the final time. It's very much possible to counter that.

Isn't that cheating?

I don't think it would be considered cheating. It's more like a poker player with a way too obvious tell that is used (abused) by the other player to gain an advantage in the game that should be random.

Re: 500K bet on rock paper scissors ruled invalid by Quebec court

#203

Post by tomp »

crazygringo wrote: post #174
ramblerman wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> IANAL, but betting half a million dollars on three hand gestures qualifies as excessive imho. IANAL either but to me the law/government is there to uphold contracts. Not judge if they are smart or deemed a good idea.

You're factually wrong. Judges very much, all the time, deem whether a contract is exploitative or not. Valid contracts are signed between two parties where both are very much aware of what they're doing and fall within non-exploitative bounds. You're not allowed to contract yourself into slavery no matter how much you want to. Indentured servitude is similarly illegal. You also can't charge someone a billion percent…

How can a contract that gives both parties equal chances of winning equal amounts of money be exploitative?

Re: 500K bet on rock paper scissors ruled invalid by Quebec court

#204

Post by LargeWu »

a1369209993 wrote: post #183
LargeWu wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of this. While it's true that the more skilled party in a traditional physical sport will do better over the long run, their advantage will also be more apparent over the short run. Skill in poker comes from managing variance over a long horizon; the advantage for a particular hand is largely determined by randomness The advantage in sports does not derive from randomne…

> Over a statistically large sample of hands or games, skilled players will almost always dominate unskilled players. > It would be almost impossible to quantify odds of winning a given poker hand before any cards are dealt. Not directly relevant, but it just occured to me that, if you're playing poker against someone you know is more skilled than you, the best strategy is to not look at your cards.

Not true. Consider the following example:

Two players are playing, heads up. Both players always play every hand, and there is always exactly one bet and call per betting round. Under this scenario, the EV for each player is 0, since we could expect them to both win half the hands, and importantly, win exactly the same amount of money each hand.

Now consider a second situation in which player A plays every hand the same way, but player B folds with the lowest EV hand before any additional cards are revealed. (in hold'em this is 2-7 offsuit). What happens is that player B is losing less money with their worst hand than player A. And since this is zero-sum, it means player B will expect a very slight profit.

Now, extrapolate this to player B only playing +EV hands, while player A doesn't even look at their cards and plays every hand. The following betting rounds still proceed the same way. Player B will be losing a small amount - the ante - on poor hands, and willing a much larger amount with their good hands.

This gets to the heart of my argument - that skill in games like poker or backgammon - will inexorably prevail over a long enough timeline. Sure, player A might catch a great string of cards and beat player B sometimes. But play enough and player B will eventually dominate player A even if no other decisions are made.

This is all, of course, just a thought experiment, but it's meant to illustrate that skill in poker is equivalent to making +EV decisions in the face of incomplete information.

Re: 500K bet on rock paper scissors ruled invalid by Quebec court

#205

Post by LargeWu »

airstrike wrote: post #187
LargeWu wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of this. While it's true that the more skilled party in a traditional physical sport will do better over the long run, their advantage will also be more apparent over the short run. Skill in poker comes from managing variance over a long horizon; the advantage for a particular hand is largely determined by randomness The advantage in sports does not derive from randomne…

> It would be almost impossible to quantify odds of winning a given poker hand before any cards are dealt. You're literally making my point, now, namely: luck is a much bigger factor in poker than in other card games, so I prefer to play those that require less fortune from me and more strategy.

If you want to call it "variance" instead of "luck", I would agree with that. There aren't that many decisions to be made in a given poker hand, and many times they won't matter anyway. So, I get what you're saying. However, variance is exactly what makes poker a great gambling game. The very skill in poker is managing the variance.

I would also add that poker, in the absence of real money, is not that fun, and that for pure entertainment value, I would rather play a game that relies less on variance.

Re: 500K bet on rock paper scissors ruled invalid by Quebec court

#206

Post by icebraining »

apta wrote: post #196
icebraining wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proven by whom?

Look at Vegas for a very obvious example.

That's not how proofs work. I can look and see negative cases, but you need for than that to show a net negative effect on society.

Re: 500K bet on rock paper scissors ruled invalid by Quebec court

#207

Post by thisiszilff »

tomp wrote: post #203
crazygringo wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're factually wrong. Judges very much, all the time, deem whether a contract is exploitative or not. Valid contracts are signed between two parties where both are very much aware of what they're doing and fall within non-exploitative bounds. You're not allowed to contract yourself into slavery no matter how much you want to. Indentured servitude is similarly illegal. You also can't charge someone a billion percent…

How can a contract that gives both parties equal chances of winning equal amounts of money be exploitative?

The loser is exploited. Imagine if the losing condition were that the loser is enslaved. Just because you can't tell at the start which party will be the loser (and so exploited) doesn't mean the contract itself isn't exploitative

Re: 500K bet on rock paper scissors ruled invalid by Quebec court

#208

Post by apta »

icebraining wrote: post #206
apta wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at Vegas for a very obvious example.

That's not how proofs work. I can look and see negative cases, but you need for than that to show a net negative effect on society.

The fact that people lose money for no reason other than delusion that they're going to make a lot of money doing nothing is enough proof. Gambling is fundamentally immoral and parasitic.

Re: 500K bet on rock paper scissors ruled invalid by Quebec court

#209

Post by apta »

valuearb wrote: post #198
apta wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then you crack down on such sites. It will prevent the vast majority of gambling from taking place, which will be a net plus on society.

It will not. First, large numbers of people will still gamble, and pay a far higher price to do so. Sports betting is illegal in my state, yet the poker games at my local casino has always been full of bookies taking bets from other players, at significantly worse lines and higher vig than legal book makers in Vegas charge. And sometimes stiffing winners clients after they have a big win, or using threats of violence…

> Sports betting is illegal in my state, yet the poker games at my local casino...

So gambling is still allowed in your state. I'm saying to ban it completely so the entire market is closed.

It won't be too difficult to crack down on private gambling sites as well. The issue in the US is that each state has its own laws, so this won't work unless there is a ban at the federal level.

> Legalized gambling doesn’t just save lives by keeping it out of organized crime control, it makes it far less costly for participants, and making its negative impacts on society much lower.

I don't agree. There are countries where gambling is banned, and they don't have a gambling or crime problem.

Re: 500K bet on rock paper scissors ruled invalid by Quebec court

#210

Post by icebraining »

apta wrote: post #208
icebraining wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how proofs work. I can look and see negative cases, but you need for than that to show a net negative effect on society.

The fact that people lose money for no reason other than delusion that they're going to make a lot of money doing nothing is enough proof. Gambling is fundamentally immoral and parasitic.

Most players don't hold any such delusion, they just like the thrill of the chance despite knowing it's quite unlikely. Gambling addicts are quite a small percentage, compared to the millions who spend a coffee cup's worth every week on a lottery ticket.

If you're going to outlaw an activity because a small percentage can't control themselves, you'll have to outlaw quite a few activities.

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