The Dark Sides Of Poker That People Don’t Talk About Enough

Hypocrisy & Fakeness

The eternal dilemma of being a poker player is how to find a balance between two necessities. One side of the scale is outplaying others and taking their money to make a living as a professional player. The other side is supporting the image of poker as a welcoming community where new players can come, earn money, relax, and make new friends. This second part is a bit harder to accomplish when you’re always thinking that you not only need to “rob” another person to make a living but also do it in a way that leaves no hard feelings in the process (or at least a minimum).

The high roller and crypto trader Wenzhi Fei, better known as Wesley from Hustler Casino Live, described this situation during The Nick Vertucci Show in more detail:

“In general people are sensitive but the poker community is more fake, very hypocritical and selfish. Poker is a negative EV game because even if you don’t play a hand, you still pay rake. So, every money you win is from other people. And everyone tries their best to take advantage of other people. That’s the core of poker.

And they try to be nice, polite, make fish happy, tell them: “Oh, nice play!” — I don’t like it. I want them to know they played a hand badly so they can improve. I tell them the truth because I don’t play poker for a living. Other pros, who play better than fishes but not as good as me, try to get advantage from the fishes. They try to play loose, be funny, be nice — just to get advantage.”

Long story short, the negative sum nature of the game, in Wesley’s opinion, affects the culture along with players’ disposition towards honesty and sincerity. According to him, this is mostly due to the predominance of selfish interests in the moment over the desire to prolong the game.

However, not every player chooses to fake it during the game. Some of them do the opposite. During the game, they openly disrespect opponents trying to get in their head and increase their tilt for a short term advantage. With that said, after the game is over or someone busts out, these chameleons transform into the kindest, most sympathetic people that will tell you there it nothing personal in their attitude at the table.

The thing is: you can’t trust either of these behavioral patterns because you don’t know how they behave outside the game, so you can’t ever tell which persona is real, leading us to our second point.

Unreliability & Dishonesty

It would take ages to list every known case of cheating, scamming, or any other instance of unreliability inside the poker community. And there’s not just one or two reasons for this type of behavior being so widely spread in poker. Here we’ll look at just some of the most common ones.

1. Some poker players will falsely interpret positive attitudes towards bluffing as a sign of tolerance towards dishonesty in general.
2. Poker attracts a specific demographic, including people who dream about becoming rich regardless of the means, often choosing shady tools and approaches to reach their goal.
3. Some people have a very good understanding of how bad poker players go about determining trustworthiness. They use this to take loans, make promises they don’t intend to keep, get money and disappear.
4. There is a lack of legal regulation when it comes to poker. When people cannot be held accountable by law and know it — the most greedy of them will inevitably take every available advantage and take what they can from the naive and inexperienced part of the community.

The only thing the community can do to reduce the amount of dishonesty is exposing cheaters, debtors and unreliable players. However, this is also not an ideal solution because in most cases you can’t literally do anything with the players facing these accusations.

Degradation

The poker community has its fair share of struggles with problematic members and different forms of degradation, just like many other socially isolated groups.

The main problem here is that poker players simmer among their own kind, especially professionals who make a living from the game, so they often don’t have a regular influx of new information that would broaden their horizons. Their focus on the game turns them into poor conversationalists who don’t strive for development outside the game and don’t bring any real value to humanity. And when they try to spread their passion for poker amongst non-players, they often make things worse by showing how narrow-minded and limited the game can make you.

Both on higher levels and among recreational players you can find very well-educated people with a broad outlook on life, interesting hobbies and social views. However, you often need to try harder to find them among peers that are more consumed by poker.

The second issue is more important in terms of personal impact rather than having an effect on a wider community scale. We’re talking about problem gamblers who have an addiction and play to satisfy a psychological urge. They can be emotionally volatile, repulsive and even frightening during the game because they aren’t in the best state of mind — they need to be taken care of by poker regulators and advisors whom the community always seems to be lacking. Other players can’t help gamblers because they don’t have the authority or right to prevent them from playing.

All of these problematic aspects of poker aren’t something you can just brush off and ignore. They impact your game whether you want them to or not. So, you need to be aware of them and ready to face them if you choose to be a regular player.

But remember that the poker community does not exist in a vacuum and creates itself: we are the community and together we can give it a more pleasant form. It’s just a matter of deliberate action and time.