Poker and the Christian: Walking the Line
When is Poker a Sin
A Christian's Response to the game of poker and his perspective on gambling.
CLICK HERE FOR PART 1 OF CHRISTIAN AND POKER - IS IT A SIN?
CLICK HERE FOR PART 2 OF CHRISTIAN AND POKER - MORALITY AND POKER
Last Updated: October 14, 2009
I've gotten a lot of e-mail about my first two articles. A lot of it positive and a lot of it negative. I'm realizing that if you think poker is gambling, I'm just not going to change your mind. But a lot of people who have responded positively are still walking the line and not sure.
I have to agree that there is a fine line between poker being a sin and poker being a game. I want to take a moment and make the line clear. The reality is that for some Christians, poker will be a sin. Here are some questions to ask and some positions to consider when decided are you mature enough to play the game.
Are you Accountable?
To sum it all up, if you are a Christian and you play poker, you have to be accountable to someone about your game. In fact, I am accountable to my wife about my game play because she has the most invested in my managing our time and money.
Let's break this down.
Financial Accountability
God gives you resources and money is very important resource. Ask yourself these questions:
- What percentage of your family income is used to play poker?
- Are you able to pay your bills? Does poker endanger your ability to pay bills?
- Are you using money dedicated to other areas to fund you play?
- Are you exercising good bankroll management?
Three years ago, my wife and I agreed that I would have a yearly budget of $100 to play poker. If I lost that $100, I couldn't play until next year. I turned the $100 into $1,000 that year and bought us Disneyland Annual Passes with the winnings.
Three years later, I'm still playing with my original $100 from three years ago and have never had to use personal or family money to play poker. In other words, I've not had to use mortgage money or food money or my child's college funds, to cover my poker bankroll.
Time Accountability
- How much time each week do you play poker?
- Are you withdrawing from the world to play poker?
- Are you getting sleep?
- Do you spend time with your friends and family?
I'll admit that turning $100 into currently $1,600 is not a huge leap in three years, but the reality is that I have a family and I would much rather spend time with them than on the computer or at a card room. Since becoming a father, I really only have about 5 hours a week to play. So I spread it out over the week and my ability to grow my bankroll slows down. I've have even taken 2 week breaks on 4 occasions from poker. You just can't let it become an obsession.
Skill Accountability
- Are you a winning player?
- Are you improving?
- Do you have people or resources to consult to improve your game?
- Do you exercise proper bankroll management?
- Are you playing at levels that are appropriate to your skill and bankroll?
You can't play poker and consistently lose. Losing over the long haul is not an option because you will be constantly refunding your bankroll month to month, week to week, day to day. The best thing that I did was subscribe to a poker training site. This has turned me to a winning player. I am now more confident in my game play relying more on the math and skill of poker as opposed to the luck of poker.
Bankroll management is also important here. You have to play at level that are appropriate to your bankroll and skill level. As of writing this article, I have $550 in my poker bankroll (it's not the $1,600 because I've withdrawn money to buy some nice stuff for my wife and kid, i.e. we had a really good 10 year anniversary).
With my $550, I can only play $10 SNG's and $.50/$1 Limit games. By playing the correct levels and limits, you protect your overall bankroll from bad beats that occur, and believe me, I'm not immune to bad beats.
Motivation/Spiritual Accountability
- Why do you play poker?
- Is your play God honoring?
- What is your attitude about your Opponents?
- How do you handle winning?
- How do you handle losing?
- Are you bring a witness at the table?
- Do you show humility at the table?
What's your motivation to playing poker? For me, it's fun. For others, it's to make a living. There's nothing wrong with making a living playing poker as long as you have that accountability in place.
Ask yourself if God is proud of your approach to poker? Do you feel greedy trying to win as much as you can? Do you feel guilty when you pull money out of your child's college fund or food budget to play poker? Do you shrug off a bad beat easy enough? Are you a witness at the table?
Conclusion
My hope is that if you're a Christian poker player, that you take seriously the challenge of accountability. Have someone ask you the hard questions about your poker play. Have someone ask you the hard questions, when it comes to how you manage your money, what limits your playing, whether your can actually have what it takes to be a good player and how you conduct yourself at the table.
It's easy as Christians to reason that Poker is not gambling, but a skill game (which it is) but it's also easy to fall into the traps associated with playing any game for money, whether skill-based or gambling.
Thank you for all of you who have read my first article. Please keep coming back and let me know what you think. alan@mypalal.com