About a week ago, word broke that Vicky Coren, a longtime PokerStarspro, had left the site over its decision to introduce sports betting and casino games. The news rippled through the poker community and many sympathized with Coren for her decision.

Enter Daniel Negreanu (pictured), PokerStars’ front man and a member of the 2014 Poker Hall of Fame class. In a post on FullContactPoker, Negreanu espoused his views on poker and gambling, saying in part, “I would personally feel like a hypocrite if I justified that it’s OK for me to take money from problem gamblers, but it’s not OK for the casino to do the same. If it’s wrong, it’s wrong, no matter who profits. As much as we’d like to separate poker from gambling, poker played for money is gambling. There will be some winners and a vast majority of losers.”

Negreanu argued that while poker, the stock market, and sports betting are beatable, casino games are not. As he put it, “The math is quite simple: the more you play, the more you are going to lose. You ‘could’ win, and you will win occasionally, but the game is obviously rigged in such a way to ensure the house always wins in the end.”

Casino games aren’t all doom-and-gloom, however, especially for recreational players, according to Negreanu. He pointed out that a recreational player might actually have a higher ROI at a blackjack or craps table than at a poker table full of sharks. “Kid Poker” concluded, “I don’t see how I could rationalize being against casinos profiting from disadvantaged players, but all for taking those same types of players’ money for myself.”

Despite Coren (pictured) calling out PokerStars, Negreanu paid respects, saying, “I both respect and admire Vicky Coren’s personal stance on online casino gaming. I assume she asked herself a lot of tough questions, and, in the end, drew a line in the sand that she wasn’t willing to cross. I suppose everyone has their own line in the sand, and they aren’t all going to be in the same place, and that’s neither right nor wrong. What matters most is that when you draw that line, you also follow it up with doing what you feel is right, and Vicky deserves all the kudos in the world for doing that.”

Last month, PokerStars announced that it will roll out blackjack and roulette to about half of its customer base by the end of the year, with sports betting and other casino games to follow in 2015. It also plans to launch a fully-featured casino in 2015 that will appear on the Web and on a mobile platform. These changes come following Amaya Gaming’s purchase of PokerStars and Full Tilt in June.

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