Public poker is a billion-dollar-a-year industry involving 400 California card clubs, scores of card clubs in other states, and about 100 Nevada casinos.

The public poker industry could collapse if a majority of its customers — the losers — ever fully realize the amount of money that they will lose with automatic certainty to the winners (good players, professionals, and professional cheaters) and to the casinos or card clubs (through automatic rakes or time collections). Once they clearly understand their inevitable and inescapable loser’s role, some public players might quit poker to save their time and money. Others might switch to private poker to eliminate their automatic losses to the house, the professionals, and the cheaters. Still others might switch to other gambling or casino games to eliminate their losses to the good players, the professionals, and the cheaters. Or would they quit or switch? Would the losers abandon public poker despite knowing the inescapable multiple tributes they must pay to the house, the good players, the professionals, and the cheaters?

All other legalized games have a sound and honest operating base that mechanically extracts fixed percentages from all players. Professional players and widespread cheating do not exist for any casino game (except poker) because in those other games, players cannot extract money from other players — and no player can extract money from the house or casino over the long term. Therefore, no true professional player can exist for any casino game (except in poker and perhaps rare cases in blackjack) because no player can support himself by gambling against immutable odds that favor the house or casino.

The public poker industry, on the other hand, is built on a unique establishment of genuine professional players who make a living by applying superior poker abilities, collusion cheating, or a combination of both to consistently extract money from the other public players — the losers.

Could the billion-dollar public poker industry survive if the losers clearly understood their role of being permanent milch cows to the house, the professionals, and the cheaters? Perhaps… perhaps not… depending on how many public players would continue to accept their role as suckers and losers.

If the losers ever began rejecting their sucker’s role by quitting public poker, the public poker industry would collapse.⁴³ Indeed, the entire gambling industry would collapse if customers ever became imbued with rational self-interest and began rejecting their loser’s role.

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^{43The demise of public poker could benefit good players in private games by causing an influx of losers into their private games, especially in Nevada, California, and other areas in which public poker now exists. But a disadvantageous influx of public-game professionals and cheaters into their private games could also occur.}