In an interview with Yahoo! Finance, Sheldon Adelson let the cat out of the bag: poker is not a skill game. I mean, I guess that’s true if said bag is located within the psychotic and drug-riddled brain of a similarly-named fictional character, Elliot Alderson, but even then, as nutso as Mr. Robot is, he is smart enough to know that poker is most definitely a game of skill. No fear, though, as poker pro Brian Rast has come to the defense of poker players worldwide and has confronted the assertions of the Las Vegas Sands CEO by challenging him to a $2 million heads-up poker game.
Before continuing, let’s be perfectly honest. Adelson, a man who has become one of the richest people in the world by encouraging people to lose money on games like roulette and slots, knows that poker is a game of skill. He is against it in its online form because he for some reason sees the growth of online gambling as a threat to his brick-and-mortar business. He can’t come out and say that, though, or else he would look like an even bigger asshole than he is, as he has personally tried to advance legislation (the Restoration of America’s Wire Act) that would ban online poker in the United States. It’s a weird situation where everyone, even his political compatriots, knows Adelson is a bullshitter, yet he continues to try to push his narrative that online poker is BAD.
Even so, he maintained the illusion of himself as a noble knight in the interview with Yahoo! Finance, saying, “They say poker is a game of skill. I don’t know how skill can apply to somebody shuffling a deck of cards and randomly giving them out to you. You don’t have any control over it. Can somebody bluff and can somebody place bets better than somebody else? Yes. But that doesn’t make poker a game of skill.”
The discussion actually revolved around daily fantasy sports, but what he said about DFS is the same line he uses about poker:
I think it exploits poor people. I was one myself. And I don’t want people that are exploitable to be exploited. I can make money in an honest way—as a form of entertainment. If people want to come and be entertained I’m very happy to provide that service. But why do I need it, the fantasy sports? We’re making money [without it]. I don’t need it. And I think it’s immoral.
Yeah, ok there, big guy.
So now Brian Rast, the latest WSOP $50,000 Poker Players Championship…er…champion…has thrown down the gauntlet, not that it will get picked up by Adelson. On Friday, he issued the challenge over Twitter, saying, “Hey Sheldon Adelson, waz up? Poker is a skill game. Don’t believe me? You’re a billionaire, I’m not close. Let’s play HU 4 2 million each.”
“In fact Sheldon my man, I’ll pay you 500$ 2 play 100bb freeze outs for 2mil, so if poker isn’t a skill game u earning and can prove me wrong”
Two million dollars is virtually pocket change for Adelson, but it is a significant sum of money for Rast, so by issuing the challenge, he is telling the billionaire that he is extremely confident that a) poker is a skill game and b) his own skill is much higher than Adelson’s.
At the same time, if somehow Adelson took him up on the offer, it would be a risky one for Rast, as short-term variance could rear its ugly head. Imagine the disaster of an Aces versus Kings cooler or some such made-for-TV poker hand like that. I know that I am not better at poker than Brian Rast (not remotely close), but I also know that short-term luck has the ability to overcome long-term skill, so I would have a chance to beat him.
