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• Man Loses Wife in a Game of Poker: A Russian man offered his wife in exchange for more chips when he was cleaned out at the card table. He subsequently lost the chips and his wife when his opponent appeared at his house the next day to collect his winnings and he complied. Bizarrely, the wife fell in love with her new ‘owner’ so they all lived happily ever after. 

  Man Gets Breasts for $100,000: A Canadian man made a buxom $100,000 for getting breast implants and keeping them for a year.  This came about after his friends, knowing that he did strange things for money, suggested the bet. He also once lived in his bathroom for a month for $15,000. Strangely, he still has the implants in- he never removed them. 

  Natural Disasters: There are several online betting sites at which you can wager on natural disasters and global warming. Wagers have included when and where the effects of global warming will be most felt and whether Manhattan will be underwater by 2014 . 

  Taking lucky numbers a bit too far: A young man in High Wycombe who was turning 23 on the 23^rdday of the month, celebrated his birthday by placing £23 on the number 23 in roulette at exactly 23 minutes past the 23^rd hour. He walked away with more than £800.

   Scorpion fights: Middle Eastern Gamblers have been known to place large bets on the outcome of scorpion fights held in saucers.

  Reverse Gear: In 1735, a German novelist rode a horse backwards from London to Edinburgh for a considerable wager. 

  Ferret Bingo: this game is played in some parts of England.  Punters get to choose from which numbered drainpipe a ferret would escape from a barrel. 

        Who wants to live forever? 59 year old dare-devil Evel Knievel bet his 37 year old doctor $10,000 that he (Knievel) would outlive the much younger man.  The bet was made in 1998 and Mr. Knievel lost the bet when he passed away in 2007

Well, this is a Poker Blog, so I think it’s pretty obvious which side we’re hedging our bets on.

Poker is a game of skill and in many pro-poker fronts is not considered to be gambling. Here’s why:

Gambling is associated with luck or chance and with the odds being stacked heavily against you to lose your money. The house will make more money than you if you are gambling over time. This is a fact.

While a certain amount of gambling can take place during a poker game, this generally only happens when a player is behind in a hand and decides to leave their chances ‘up to fate’. If this becomes a habit the player will lose in the long term.

The ‘naturally lucky’ poker players who seem to have ‘good fortune’ on their side are in fact highly skilled and knowledgeable. Skilled poker players also know that if they stick with their skills and knowledge they will have and steady and growing income. This is not gambling. The reason why poker is put in the category of gambling is because casinos like to use poker to attract players, not to make money. Poker players will generally be accompanied by a partner who will play games that truly are a gamble such as slots or craps.