Have You Ever Felt Guilty Winning Against a 'Whale' who is clearly a gambling addict?

This could have been asked in a different and shorter way, "Would you sit at a table with Paisting and if the answer is no tell him to quit?" My answer is no and I tried that and he is still out on his imaginary whale hunt.

the OP was just giving his thoughts man, why u gotta be so rude?

Lol I didn't know who Paisting was so I had to search on google. I must tell you sir that you have just made my day. Thanks for the response

No problem I am sure reading that will keep you busy but I do apologise for derailing.

To answer the question you originally asked, it is a tricky one because I have not played against anyone where I felt they were addicted but I have left tables where a player would be throwing it around and at some point mention how they were on an alcohol binge so I leave then. I know players will have different views on that which is fine and I wouldn't judge others for continuing to play.

There was a thread about this before but I have no idea where it was and views were mixed as far as I can remember. Your questioning this shows you have empathy with the player affected in the game you mentioned but you couldn't have known their circumstances at the time.

No I don't feel bad. Competition in business is usually more vicious.

Only time I really felt somewhat guilty was with a recreational player who I used to loan money too or sometimes accept Zelle for on behalf of others. I never lent him more than 5k, but sometimes he would send me 10k through Zelle to repay loans from others that I would then pay to the original lender. The guy was retired and a former business owner, so he seemed independently wealthy. But he basically went from playing 1/2 to 1/2/5 to 5/5/10 to 10/25/50 and his losses started climbing from 5k in a day to 10k to 15k to losing 15k, saying he was done and coming back with 15k later. Finally, one day I was not playing with him, he lost 90k, the same day he borrowed 50k from one player, 20k from one player, and 5k from another player. He then later said he would not be able to pay them back.

As a full time for profit player who plays some private and semi-private games, lending to this player was a calculated business risk. And when I first lent him money, it seemed mainly as a favor. But I later realized the guy had a gambling addiction that was growing in severity.

One thing I have noticed with him and others is that, if you see players all of the sudden playing bigger stakes, playing deeper, losing more, borrowing more, all at an alarming acceleration, they may be close to reaching the end of their poker funds. Creditors are about to get stiffed, and they may well have ruined themselves and their family. Another red flag is when you never see them working - they play all the time. People with high incomes generally have to work sometimes. Business owners have to run their business sometimes, even if it is meeting with managers, bankers, opening their new restaurant, whatever. Guys who aren't doing this are more likely to have a nest egg that they are blowing through, and when it's gone, it's gone.

OP, it really sucks that this guy gambled away his entire bankroll. But it isn't your fault. That said, here are some ideas I have about harm reduction:

1. Don't lend money or limit money to certain thresholds - a reasonable loss for a single session of poker. Businesses usually allow a month or two to go without payment, by the time the next bill is going to be due. They don't let 12 months of payments rack up in 1 month. When they do, they are more likely to write off. When you see the amounts they are asking to borrow skyrocket, by lending more money you are not only putting yourself at risk, but you may be contributing to their downfall. Or - just don't lend money at all.

2. Don't pressure recreational players to play games or stakes they are not comfortable with. Don't make them feel bad for moving down in stakes. If they are taking a break, tell them breaks are healthy.

3. Don't goad recreational players into playing poorly. If they have tightened up when they were playing super loose previously, don't berate them for it.

4. If you organize games, try to make them fun and rec friendly. Try to have a good ratio of recs to regs so the recs can take turns winning off of each other more often. Limit sneaky ways of making the stakes larger like forcing standup game or large /multiple restraddles that drastically increase the size of the game and the variance.

At the end of the day, if you are a winning poker player, some degenerate is going to pay for your mortgage, cars, vacations, and children's college tuition. It's not a noble profession. While you are out trying to earn a living doing something that makes you happy, try to do good sometimes and not be the biggest most parasitic POS in the room.

I did once feel sorry for a whale as it reminded me of my brother who is (was) a gambler (plays too high and loses) and can't control himself in any other way but by not playing. So, he doesn't play anymore.

I don't feel sorry for players who lose as all have to learn and there are laws for preventing heavy gambling. Any significant feeling sorry has disappeared, and I have nothing more to say about it. So, it isn't a moral question for me but a question of laws, some inevitable gambling addicts and mostly about people who need to learn.

I learned when I was 14 or so, in a couple of moths of gambling, so I know what it emotionally is and what it takes to learn about that. I don't mind big egos, successful people and people with more money gambling; they too need to learn.

I have felt bad a couple of times, but it wasn't related to the size of the pots. Was old people playing for fun who I was constantly bluffing.

Maybe I would have felt bad for gambling addictions at one point, but lost enough pots vs. maniacs who won't fold 20% equity and always get there that those days are almost certainly gone. Also there are a lot of ways they can gamble and lose money.

A major line I know I still have is people who are playing for the first time at a casino, where I try to explain their options when they are confused and/or just generally try to make sure they have as good a time as possible and don't feel like they lost on technicalities as they lose.

One story I read where I thought people should feel guilty and I hope I would do something different in that situation was where a group of 2-5 regs. had been playing for years and one of them got dementia and started playing much worse and everyone just took his money for months before someone spoke to someone in his family.

I have told this story before so.....

Back when I was younger and the money I was playing poker for really mattered to me, I was playing in a private home game where the wins/losses were generally in the multi hundred dollar range, maybe on a bad/good day it would hit $1000 or slightly more.

So somehow I connected with one of the players and I was driving him to/from the game. One week we played and I destroyed him. He lost badly. Maybe $1500. I won at least that. Most of my winnings were against him. I just seemed to have the nuts and him second nuts each time.

So I am driving him home after the game and he is lamenting his losses. He is talking about how he owes his ex child support and things were not going great for him. To be fair to him, he was never ever doing it to make me feel guilty. At all. It was just two guys talking and him expressing his troubles.

After I dropped him off and for the next few days I spent a lot of time and energy thinking about him. I felt guilty. Here I was taking money from someone's child. He couldn't pay child support because he lost to me at poker. The sum of the money was large enough that it really mattered to me, a lot, but still not on the level of child support.

It bothered me. A lot. I was conflicted.

The next week or two I didn't see him. One of us didn't play or whatnot. Then one week where I didn't drive him we both played and he won a bunch of money off of me. He hit every draw, I missed every draw, whatever. He was up at least $1500 and at least $1200 of that was mine. Whatever, poker.

So the following week I am scheduled to pick him up to take him to the game. I am in front of his apartment waiting for him. He comes out and instead of getting in the car, he tells me to come inside, he wants to show me something.

I go inside and he shows me a huge projection TV (showing my age). He tells me that he bought it with the winnings he took off of me last week. Again to be fair, he wasn't being a dick, he was just needling me in a friendly way. He was genuinely happy and needling me in a way friends do with each other. Anyone else I would have openly laughed and congratulated him. However I couldn't get past the fact that a few weeks earlier he was sharing with me that he was behind on his child support. I knew him well enough to know that he hadn't caught up on it. He hit a windfall and chose to spend it on a TV rather than his kids.

That bothered me for a long time.

Eventually I reached the place where I realized that I couldn't concern myself over how others spent their money. I couldn't control their choices so I wasn't going to worry over them.

When someone puts money on the felt, it is up for grabs. They are using that money to try and take my money. If they get it in bad and hit a miracle one outer they are not going to give me a refund, so I am not going to care if they are playing with their rent money. It doesn't work that way.

Fair is fair and their money is up for grabs.

That said, I am one of the first people who will take someone aside between hands, even a stranger, and talk to them about their choices and ask if they want to continue. I will call the floor if I think another player is too drunk to play.

However, one the cards are dealt I will play my hand to the best of my abilty and try and take as much of my opponents money as possible and not feel guilty about it. I am not going to feel guilty about taking food money from their children's mouths when it is only going to go towards a big screen TV anyway.