What Are the Odds?

"I don't know if God likes poker I know lady luck does...." So someone wrote during one of our recent online poker tournaments. Another National League of Poker game brought up the "L-word" as well....

dokerbohm: guess it time to go as usual at this site
dokerbohm: good luck all
Dealer: flopblogger wins Main Pot ($2150)
dokerbohm: cause thatsll you need here luck
Me: What percentage of poker (in general) would you say is luck?
Gonad: skill wins here bwahaha
boondock618: Cant u hear the violin in the background
dokerbohm: use to think it was 70 precent luck 30 precent skill
dokerbohm: but here its 95 luck and 5 precent skill
boondock618: so it is skill to go all in with 1o jack
dokerbohm: constant river saves way beyond industry norms

We've also lost our share of big pots and all-in bets online, to opponents catching river cards. So does that mean poker is entirely a game of chance -- and condemned by the Bible as wrong?

We'd answer NO to both parts of that question. There's a measure of skill (how much is open to debate) in terms of knowing if your cards are good, and utilizing them properly. And believe it or not, we heard a legendary U.S. Southern Baptist Pastor on radio the other day saying risk can be biblically acceptable.

The late Adrian Rogers based that view on the book of Ecclesiastes. "As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the body is formed in a mother's womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things. Sow your seed in the morning, and at evening let not your hands be idle, for you do not know which will succeed, whether this or that, or whether both will do equally well." (Ecc. 11:5-6)

A farmer has no guarantee his planted seed will yield a bumper crop. All sorts of things could happen, from pestilence to a killing frost. But a farmer plants in faith -- and a believing farmer trusts God with the outcome.

We do the same when we play poker. A bad beat could come early. A big pot could come our way, leading to a win. The outcome is in God's hands, and we trust that His outcome is best for us.

"Trust in him at all times, O people.... for God is our refuge," says Psalm 62:8. Is that where your trust is -- at all the tables of life?