I'm steaming....

[Doc]

'Everyone does it' makes for poor justification for... Well, just about anything.
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But it's an acceptable practice in the business. It's what seperates the pros from the guys who provide the pros with a steady income.

The only thing not acceptable in the business is getting sloppy or getting caught.

It's not about justification. Nobody gives a rat's ass about that. This is a career built on lies and deception. Trust me, justification is the least of their concerns. It is an openly dishonest profession. They are just another magician, only instead of making crappy money at kid's birthday parties, they are wowing idiots gathered around a little round table. It's the same thing. Magicians lie, and nobody gets hurt. A rabbit gets pulled out of a hat, and cards magically appear from strange places. Card sharps do the same thing, except they fleece fools from their money. It's all a cheap magic act to fool the simple minded. It's not cheating... It's business. Plain and simple. When you watch a magic show on stage, that man is lying to you. And you choose to buy it. You believe in the magic. Because you want to. You are entertained. You pay to watch. Same thing as sitting down at the table with a card sharp. You are paying to see an act. It's all an elaborate sham. When you sit down willingly to play a game that involves deception and lies, there is no "cheating." There is only people who are better at deception and lying than you are. If you don't like it, go do something honest.

It's really very simple.

Edit.

Let me put this another way.

If you sit down at a table with me, it becomes my job to give you exactly what you came for. A game. An entertaining game.

I will charm you, gain your confidence, stroke your ego, allow you to think you are winning, make you feel good, allow you a brief moment of feeling like you at the top of the world, I will allow you to feel extreme joy at knowing that you are having wonderful luck this night.

But at the end of the night, I am going home with more money than I came with. It's called profit, and I expect to be paid for my time. So long as I provided a valuable service, which is making you feel good about your self and have a nice time, I get to go to sleep and night and wake up the next day guilt free. I put on a show. So do plenty of other people who play this game. We provide a service just anybody else, and, just like any other working stiff, we have to be paid. And we have tools in our profession that insure we get our cut.

Mind you, I have never considered my self a professional. I play for fun. I play for keeps too, but I like to have fun doing it.

:D