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Greed "tends to" go along? Surely all gambling is greed?
Depends on your definition of greed I guess. When I think of greed and the way it is characterized in scripture as a sin, I think of as an unhealthy desire for wealth. To desire money is not a bad thing, otherwise anyone who gets a job is being "greedy". Rather it is an excessive drive for wealth.

I like poker because it is fun to play, not because I think it'll make me rich. I dont' think that my desire to win money at poker is any more excessive than the money I hope to gain by having a job and drawing an income.

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That rush you get is your greed being massaged.
I don't think getting excited about a big cash inflow is the same thing as greed. And actually, I get a much bigger rush at the final table of a $4 tournament where I can win $200 for first place than I do end of year bonus time at my job (which is worth a lot more). A lot of the rush comes from doing well at something, and in tournament poker payouts is how you keep score.

But more important then that is how the money affects the winner. A person who is driven by greed for more wealth finds his or her significance in the wrong place. This is also one of the problems I have with capitalism- it teaches us to value our self worth on the basis of monetray value. There are plenty of miserable poker players making gobs of money because their value is in the accumulation of wealth, not things that really matter. You see them on TV all the time and it is very sad.

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but it's a bit weird to hear you both disparage and celebrate greed in the same post.
Winning money is fun, especially for a job well done. Developing an unatural drive to accumulate wealth is dangerous, and a sin. The two are different in my mind.

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FWIW, it didn't initially occur to me that there was a Religious-Right angle to banning online poker.
Make no mistake, this is THE reason this came about. B&M casionas are going to be hurting because of this legislation because if it has its intended effect, poker will suffer overall. The WSOP Main event had over 8,000 participants this year, each paying $10,000 to enter. And I think more than half of these entries were won online. Without online poker, much of this revenue will be lost for sure.

And if there were B&M supported reasons to do this, it wouldn't be coming from a Republican. I think the Democrat introduced bill in Washington to make gambling a Felony was more of an example of this, attempting to protect the interestes of the Indian reservations. Frist is almost certainly pandering to the religious right with this- no question at all.
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-Jeff
Rome did not create a great empire by having meetings; they did it by killing all those who opposed them.