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Jan 3, 2021
is donating gambling winning to charity like kosher money laundering?
You don't see gambling news too often on Life in Israel. or on Jewish sites in general.
Yet the recent World Series of Poker is a Jewish news item now.
According to Poker News, Gershon Distenfeld made a dramatic announcement heading into the final round of the World Series of Poker. Distenfeld announced he would donate all his winnings to charity.
The Gemara in Taanis discusses the idea of being able to "test" God regarding charity - one can give charity in order to become wealthy. There are numerous debates regarding the exact meaning of that idea, but in some fashion it exists.
While I don't know that Distenfeld was testing God to help make him the winner of the WSOP, he definitely putting out a good gesture by donating his winnings.
According to Poker News:
The 2020 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event final table is set to play out on Monday, December 28, and one of nine players descending upon the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino to battle it out is New Jersey’s Gershon “jets613” Distenfeld, who will begin play sixth in chips with 3,475,000.
Distenfeld, 44, was born in Queens, New York but now resides in Bergenfield, New Jersey with his wife of nearly 21 years, Aviva. Together they have three daughters Shoshana (19), Talia (15), Esti (13), and one son, Aryeh (4). He graduated from Yeshiva University with a BS in Finance in 1997.
Interestingly, Distenfeld’s birthday is December 30, meaning if he wins the final table and goes on to face Damian Salas in heads-up play for the bracelet and additional $1 million, he’d battling on his 45th birthday.
“I was born on the exact same day as Tiger Woods, December 30, 1975,” he said. “He apparently took all the golf talent destined for that day. Hopefully, I took all the poker talent!”
I checked the World Series of Poker website for updated information only to discover that Distenfeld ended the tournament in 8th place, winning some $125,885 for charity.
Some call donating gambling winnings as a form of Jewish "money laundering", so to speak - kashering ill gotten winnings by giving charity. I don't know if it is or isn't, but he made a very nice gesture and garnered some nice publicity with his announcement, and he isn't even keeping any for himself. I don't know if it qualifies quite as a kiddush hashem, but it is a nice gesture.
Good job Gershon. If you compete next year, I hope you win more.
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do u feel he's a role model? if so, for whom?
ReplyDeletekt
I dont know that he is a role model. I dont know anything about him other than this. Regular people can do good things. Maybe he can be a role model as a regular person taking a hobby and doing something good with it. I dont know. Maybe he is a role model. I really know nothing about him to comment on that.
ReplyDeleteHe's not a professional gambler, he's simply good enough at the game that he entered a contest and did really well. He's not contributing any less to יישובו של עולם than someone who studies a lot of trivia and wins at Jeopardy!. I don't understand why Joel Rich felt the need to implicitly belittle him by raising the "role model" issue (although I applaud his foresight in phrasing the question in such a way to leave himself plenty of room for deniability when called out on it).
ReplyDeleteI would say how one reads a statement says more about the reader than the statement.
DeleteMy question was simply to understand who our communities hold up as role models. One of the ways role models are made I threw publicity.
Kt
Who held him up as a role model? Is every Orthodox person who makes it to Youtube a role model?
Deletehence my original question. When one mentions something seen on another public source, assumedly there is a reason for it. Rather than presuming to read the blog owner's mind, I asked concerning one possible reason that i intuited had been a reason in past posts
Deletekt
And as side point, it is my understanding he asked his local Orthodox Rabbi a shaila before he entered the competition.
ReplyDelete"Money Laundering" presumes that the money is dirty and needs to be laundered.
ReplyDeleteBut that is not how we hold le halachah. Unless he has no other profession, he is kasher l'eidus.
Not to mention that all the chips are put into the middle, so there is no asmachta.
And the gambling here is presumably among non-Jews, as to which dina de Malchusa applies.
So there is nothing to launder here.
Apart from that, donating to charity is not "money laundering." That term refers to an operation that takes money from illegal proceeds (e.g, drugs) and puts them through some legitimate business to make them untraceable. The owners still intend to keep the money (although they might pay a percentage to the launderer for his trouble.) No one launders money to have it all go to someone else. That is pointless.
So while I doubt this guy is one of the Lamed Vov tsaddikim, I think your attack on him is unfair.
I used quotation marks around the money laundering because I am not talking about money laundering in a legal sense but in a Jewish sense. Meaning, the money isnt so kosher, as it comes from gambling, but by giving to tzedaka it becomes kosher.
Delete