[jawngee]

    In poker, the house takes a cut that typically 
    overwhelms the benefit of being a skilled player. 
    An unskilled player is losing to the house and 
    their competitors.

Unless you are playing at an underground game with an insane rake, most established casinos (all of them in the US) have a beatable rake.

Most online game rakes are beatable, plus you get rake back offers, etc.

   Gambler's ruin still takes effect: you have a finite 
   bankroll so you can only ride out a finite amount of 
   bad luck before you're bankrupt. Fine, if you're rich 
   or the house.

Bankroll management is part of being a skilled player. If you are playing with a roll suitable for the level you are playing at, 20 buy-ins usually, and still meet ruin then you aren't beating variance then you are a bad player, not just having bad luck.

   Many of the best poker players in the world have bankrupted 
   or have had to take deep loans to continue playing.

Most pro poker players are degenerate gamblers who play other games or do sports betting or lose big on prop bets, etc.

Now contrast these points against games like blackjack (which make the casinos way more money than the poker room does) and it's not even remotely the same thing.

I survived for two years playing live poker and I used to be a partner in an underground club in Manhattan. Our rake was inline with what AC offered.

[mod]

Most of your comment was on-point, but you're incorrect here:

> Bankroll management is part of being a skilled player. If you are playing with a roll suitable for the level you are playing at, 20 buy-ins usually, and still meet ruin then you aren't beating variance then you are a bad player, not just having bad luck.

There's a strong suvivorship bias present here. Most poker pros never busted their 20-roll buy-in--that's probably true. Plenty of very good players had some very bad luck and busted a 20 buy-in 'roll.

Some very smart professionals--leatherass, for instance--recommend 100 buy-in bankrolls.

Even then, if you play long enough (as in many lifetimes in aggregate), you will eventually go bust. So certainly it's happend that otherwise qualified players have blown through 100 buyin 'rolls due in large part to variance.