Poker is not really gambling. How can that be? you might be thinking. Some players win, some players lose, the game is played in casinos, life savings have been lost playing poker. That is all true, but in the sense that many of my buddies wives think of poker, it is not gambling. My friend recently told me his wife told him “I don’t want you to get addicted to gambling”. She should only know how cautious he is with his investing and wagering (wisely limited to poker and sports).

True, poker involves luck but that is only part of it. The larger part of poker is skill. That’s right, poker is a skill game with some luck mixed in just like basketball or football. The difference here is that short term luck can enable a terrible player to win pots from Phil Ivy or Daniel Negreanu. In the short term, say a one-on-one game to 11, there is no reasonable amount of luck that is going to enable me to outplay Lebron James. So, we have to look at the long run. And in the long run (say over 40 hours), with my current poker skill (reasonable), there is no way I am going to outplay Daniel Negreanu at Texas Holdem just as there is no way I am going to outplay Lebron at hoops.

Ironically, if it weren’t for the luck factor, great players wouldn’t win so much money. If it weren’t for the luck factor, poker would be like chess and after a few losses a weak player will never gamble with a more skilled player. In poker, it is the luck of a hot streak that makes the weak player think he’s better than he is and makes him want to come back for more. What about when the losses come….oh that’s just a period of “running bad”.

Gambling is what we do when we play lottery, blackjack, roulette, craps, slots, or any of the other games where we play “against the house” in Las Vegas. You cannot get an edge. People have come up with various “systems” to beat these games but…at the end of the day…you just can’t combine a bunch of individual negative EVs (negative Expected Value is the term for a disadvantaged opportunity like a roll or spin or blackjack hand) and create an edge. The WizardOfOdds has a good article on the ineffectiveness of gambling systems.

Poker, on the other hand, is a skill game that presents money-making opportunities (positive expectations) but you better make sure you are aware of the old adage “if you look around the table and can’t find the sucker, it’s probably you”.