[saiya-jin]

It also sounds like an overall horrible, consistently highly amoral way of life. Plus some form of an addiction. All the details in this discussion point pretty clearly to this. You need to be a proper a-hole to be fine doing this long term.

If one had only choice between being poor homeless or do this I could accept that relativity, but not like this. I can't have any possible respect for smart capable human living like that by choice, sucking desperate horribly sick people of their possessions, ever.

Sure, there are still few humans around worse than that, just look at the news, but its still pretty much the moral bottom. And all I've seen in this discussion just proves that (I don't judge this activity from my experience since I don't play cards, I get my happiness from mountains and extreme sports and that's more than enough, and salary is enough too).

[sneak]

There is absolutely nothing amoral about engaging directly in a fair game with consenting adults.

Nobody can lose anything they don’t choose to play. Consent matters.

We sell cigarettes on every streetcorner (to say nothing of bars), which is evidence that society has reached widespread consensus on the fact that addicts are allowed to choose to be addicted (or not) to things. (The vast, vast majority of people who play poker are not addicted to playing poker.)