How Far Would You Go?

To further develop the idea of ethical persuasion, I want to talk about a personal experience where I believe I was unethical in my persuasive techniques.

When I am not at school, I am usually involved in the online poker community. I have a poker blog where I give advice about playing the game, and about having a healthy mental approach outside of poker. I also help to moderate a highly community driven forum. And of course, I play the occasional game. The biggest difference between online poker and playing a live game, is the anonymity of online poker. You can play anyone, from anywhere around the world, and truly not know who you are playing against.

This was the case a few years ago when I found myself sitting at a table with a player who was recently on a televised poker program. He was young (20 or so), and had had a bit of success. The other thing you need to know about online poker if you are completely unfamiliar, is that every player has the option to use a type of avatar (an image or picture), to represent themselves. When I started, mine had defaulted to a cartoon picture of a voluptuous Blond, and I had never bothered to change it.

So while we were playing at the same table, my opponent who was young, confident and enthusiastic, decided he would flirt with me under the assumption that I was indeed female (based on my picture that I had never changed). Now I could have corrected him right then and there, and been done with it. Instead I chose to not only let him to continue to believe his mistake, I encouraged him further. I completely misrepresented myself, which is entirely within the rules of the game, because I believed it would be easier to win money from him if he believed I was female rather than male.

I was right, and I did make money. I didn't break any rules, but was my decision to misrepresent myself the right one? I don't think anyone would say that it was ethical, but does that make it wrong? Does it depend on how much money I made? Does the end justify the means?

We will address some of these issues in the coming posts!