Card Games and Scouting (Part II)

[OneHour]

So ... it's a matter of time before this question is asked. With popularity of Texas Hold 'Em ever increasing, is it appropriate for the boys to play Texas Hold 'Em with poker chips or even potato chips? To me it's a form of gambling when chips are involved, what say the forum? I need to prepare my response when the first set of poker chips show up at a campout. Thanks,

 

1Hour

[SemperParatus]

Poker chips have no intrinsic value. They are used for keeping score. At the end, they are packed back up by the owner and taken home.

[EagleInKY]

Holdem hasn't come up yet. But we have had guys want to play black jack. We don't let them bet with anything. They basically can keep score (# hands won). That's a little more complicated with holdem because of the multiple rounds of betting. I love playing it myself, but I cringe at the idea of scouts playing it. I guess there's a double-standard there.

[anarchist]

Lets see...trustworthy,nope,... loyal, nope,...thrifty?...nope, chips, are not money...don't see a "no card playing with chips" in the Law or the Oath...less your CO has a problem...(knew a church troop that banned cards)...I don't see the harm...so long as the boys are doing it 'after' program activities rather than 'instead of'...program...

 

If some of the boys are too immature to handle lossing even when nothing of value is lost you might have problems...(had a nephew who couldn't handle "not winning"... for its own sake) but I would think that is/or would be a statistical 'blip'...

 

Gamblers annonymous will 'probly' jump in here with both feet, however.

 

 

[Hunt]

I guess I have the same problem with no-money gambling as I would have with candy cigarettes and nonalcoholic beer--the boys are modelling an adult behavior that I consider harmful. But's it's a (mostly) legal adult behavior, and not everyone agrees with me that there's anything wrong with it. I don't know of a legitimate way for adult leaders to ban it, unless it's a rule set by the CO.

[scoutingagain]

I tend to agree with some of the others. I don't see anything wrong with playing a card game, hearts, poker or black jack, and keeping score as long as the activity does not interfere with participation in other camp programs. What card game does not include an element of chance or luck? Does keeping score constitute gambling?

 

SA

 

 

[Zahnada]

Although it's easy for us to euphemistically title such an activity as, "simply keeping score while using valueless plastic chips as tally markers", the boys will see it differently. If you ask them, they will say, "We're gambling."

 

Does that make a difference?

 

It's also important to consider that while many of us have been to Vegas or a dining room poker game with friends, there are also many familys and religions who view gambling as a horrible sin. This kind of brings up the question of where is the line between parent and boy responsibility? (ie. Should you let the Jewish boy in your troop eat pork bacon if you know his parents don't want him to, but he doesn't care?)

 

Anyway, I'm really not decided on this issue. It's something that would make me uncomfortable to see, but not necessarily uncomfortable enough to enact some artificial ruling. And I recognize that poker is mostly about the betting and the boys will do it in their tents in private if they want to.

[FScouter]

How about a game of Capture the Flag?

[scoutingagain]

Capture the Flag?

 

Hmmm, that starts with "C", rymes with "P" which rymes with "T" and that stands for "trouble".. right here in River City! Why we'd better start a scout troop to save our youth, take them to summer camp, where they can learn to play poker with chips of no nominal value to stay out of trouble.... except poker start with "P" and that rymes with "T"...when will the madness end.

 

SA

 

PS. A poor attempt at humor. Absolutely no offense toward any poster or response is intended.

[GopherJudy]

Hmmm! Another sticky situation. My son (5th grade) has Yu-gi-oh cards & Pokemon cards too & he plays them with his friends occassionally, he's never brought them on a campout. I have no clue as to how to play these games but I don't think he's ever encountered a problem. Probably because of his age, when we had gone camping & after everything was done & the boys had to go to bed, they pretty much went to bed because they were tired. The parents stayed up a little later but were rather tired too & went to bed. I had even brought a deck of playing cards for when the boys went to sleep but we were too tired to play! My son did bring some comic books, the 2 Power Pals issues he had & a book & he read a little.

 

Now for the older boys I don't see a problem with a regular deck of playing cards & playing a game of 500 Rummy, keep those math skills in use, or another non-gambling game of cards. The other cards, Magic (I never heard of), Yu-Gi-Oh or other similar types I don't think it's a good idea to bring them along on a Scout campout. Reasons - they are valuable to the boys who have them & if 1 loses a card while playing it might be a problem if he can't handle losing; or as someone else posted they could get damaged from inclimate weather; or they fall out of the backpack or wherever they're being kept & they get lost.

 

I do think that the SM should have given a reason for banning the cards & maybe the boys would have understood his reasoning.

 

Judy

[scoutldr]

Let's see...they are all Boy Scouts, on a Scout outing, playing a game with friends, having fun, using chips with no value that they can't keep anyway. And we are looking real hard for a reason to stop all this. Sheesh. We should probably ban Root Beer, too, just to be safe. Magic and YuGiOh deal with the occult and supernatural, so they have to go. Capture the Flag is a war game - nyet.

 

As to the religious question, whether cards, gambling or food, I don't see it as my role to be the keeper of the Kosher, although I love Kosher food. If a boy has been raised in a Kosher household, it is up to him and his parents to keep the family religious tradition. Of course, if the Scout requests accomodation of his dietary requirements, religious or otherwise, we gladly agree and provide alternatives, but if he voluntarily piles the bacon on his plate, that's between him and his God. I work with a Jewish guy who will meticulously pick the bacon off of his cheeseburger, but will always show up for "all you can eat shrimp" night. I don't begin to try to understand or keep track of how individuals interpret their religious obligations. I know what Leviticus says, but there seem to be a lot of people out there who didn't get the same translation.

 

[Proud Eagle]

I have no problem with card games. I like to play them. I frequently play all sorts of card games during scout activities. I see nothing wrong with it.

 

Now if people decide they want to stay in camp and play cards instead of participating in the planned activity, I could perhaps see a problem with that.

 

Also, chips are a bit of a grey arrea. I don't see anything really wrong with it, but on the other hand it does look a bit odd to see a group of Scouts or Scouters playing a game with chips.

 

Now if they decide to play a game with money or other items of value, I don't think that would be any good. Can't have any gambling.

 

As for the kids knowing the difference, I think they do understand the difference. I understood the difference when I joined my troop. In my troop card playing was common, chips were rare, and gambling was not tolerated. All of us understood the difference between playing poker or blackjack for fun and playing for money. Maybe we were just an unusually bright bunch, or perhaps kids are stupid now. I don't personally think so, but I guess it is possible.

 

Let them have fun.

 

Don't let them play for money or any other form of playing for keeps.

 

Don't let the side activities (be it cards, or book reading) take away from the activities the boys planned for and agreed to.

 

They may grumble and complain a bit when you make them put the cards up to go on the nature hike the planned at last week's meeting, but they will be glad they did, someday.

 

 

[NJCubScouter]

My troop has no official rules regarding card games that use "valuable" cards, but I think the boys themselves generally refrain from bringing those items especially since an incident at summer camp two years ago. All I know about that incident is what my son (who was a brand new Scout at the time) relayed to me, but apparently one of the older Scouts was accused of stealing some cards from one of the younger boys (not my son.) The only consequence of this that I am aware of was exacted in the democratic process, meaning that before summer camp this young man was considered a shoo-in for SPL in the election in the fall, and after this incident another candidate emerged who won, with the support of the younger boys. Justice takes many forms. (Though I myself do not know whether the accused Scout actually did steal the cards.) Anyway, as I said, I haven't noticed any of those kinds of card games since then.

 

The boys do play "regular" cards, and in fact my son's regular camping gear includes both a deck of cards and a small plastic chess set (one that would not cause any grief if it got lost, and in fact I think a couple of the pieces are gone by now, which is no problem as long as you remember that the pebble is the white pawn and the tiny stick is the black knight, or whatever.) My son has 3 or 4 chess opponents in his patrol, and you can't argue with chess. It has the benefit of keeping its own score.

 

As for card games, I do not think they use chips or anything else, and I think they mostly stick to games where you keep score on a piece of paper.

 

I don't have any problem with any of this. The chess and cards is usually done after dinner, after cleanup, when there is really no "program", it is dark or getting dark, and the boys are tired from the physical activity of the day.

 

Scoutldr, I agree with everything you have said, but please tell me you are joking about the guy who picks the bacon off his bacon cheeseburger to make it "kosher." I speak as someone who has never observed the "kosher" rules myself, but I have been around enough people who do to know what the general rules are and how people interpret, bend, or otherwise get around them. However, I think you'd have to be pretty lax in the kosher area to think that a sandwich that had bacon on it in the first place was ok, and more to the point... do you know this and are just playing?... a CHEESEburger can never, ever, be kosher. It "violates" the rule against meat and dairy at the same meal -- and in quite a spectacular fashion, I'd say. (I love cheeseburgers myself.) The strictest kosher folks have separate dishes for meat and dairy, but even if you don't go that far, well, if you are going to have a cheeseburger, you might as well leave the bacon on it.

[FScouter]

I'd guess he just doesn't like bacon.

[Zahnada]

I agree with all of you that betting with chips is an innocuous activity. But the question I was trying to ask with the bacon comment is what do you do if a parent doesn't want their child engaging in this activity? I've known some parents that would probably take such a position (either for religious of personal reasons).

 

So what do we do if a parent directly says, "I don't want my son gambling even if it's just with chips"? Where's the line? Do we not let any of the boys play? Seems harsh. Do we not let this particular boy play? Seems exclusive. Do we turn a blind eye to the activity? Seems to be dishonoring the parent's wishes.

 

I think this is the real issue we need to face as scouters. Where is the line between responsibility to the parent and duty to the scouts?