Poker is Indeed a Sport
Sports play a major role in the world in which we live today. Sports touch every aspect of our society – business, economy, entertainment, family, community and more. Sports are a dominant theme in the daily news, and parents often lead their children into sports so that they can grow accustomed to the competitiveness of the world at an early age. Yes, sports are a way of life for people all over the world.
With the explosion of poker games on television over the past half dozen years, there has been an issue as to whether the games of poker can be classified as a sport. It is entertaining and there is the gambling and competitive essence to the game. But, does poker qualify as a sport?
Funk and Wagnalls Encyclopaedic College Dictionary defines sport in this manner: “A particular game or play pursued for diversion,” and a sport is “One interested in sports or games that involve gambling.” It would seem to me that by the very definition of the term “sports,” poker and poker games qualify as a sporting event.
Let’s take a look at the most successful online poker room on the Internet, and see if its poker games qualify as sporting events. Titan Poker (www.TitanPoker.com) has as many as 50,000 players competing in poker games at over 4,000 tables at peak periods of the week. These players play for diversion, but they are also playing in a competitive arena, the poker room. There is an outcome to these games at Titan Poker, and the outcomes are related to who leaves the poker table with the money.
There is no doubt that diversion plays a part in the large number of players who are competing in a variety of pot limits at Titan Poker in a variety of poker presentations. It seems that the most popular versions of poker are Texas hold em and Omaha poker. These games are popular because the skill level of the players has an important role in determining the outcome of the game.
In both Texas holdem and Omaha poker, players need to assess their hands in terms of the odds of winning, and they must also know the abilities and tendencies of their opponents. Knowledge is an invaluable tool to bring to poker games, and it is usually the players with the most skill and knowledge who win. Therefore, if the definition of sports contains the criteria of “game” and “diversion,” the poker certainly qualifies as a sport.
The T.V. poker games score amazing ratings, as people around the world watch these competitions. Since there is gambling on the outcome of poker tournaments, these games are actually sporting events that are wagered. All in all, poker is simply not just a “kind of a sport,” poker is, indeed, a sport in the true meaning of the term.
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