Taliban authorities have barred chess across Afghanistan until further notice over concerns it is a source of gambling, which is illegal under the government’s morality law, a sports official said on Sunday.
Up next: the Taliban authorities indecisive about it’s next move, after people start betting on what they’ll ban next
Easy! They’ll ban people!
The people that voted for “people” get a (small) payout.
For people who dont know, this has to do with how people used to play chess during the early Islam days as it had a gambling component. Anything that contain a dice roll is prohibited. Thats why we see the gambling parts in these news. Modern chess is completely different which is not taking into account by Taliban.
In addition to how many hours you spend playing a game as you are not suppose to spend hours on unproductive things.
Also for people who dont know, chess doesnt make you good at critical thinking or enhance your thoughts process. It might have that ability if you mix it as part of other mental activity, but in general playing chess makes you good at chess.
The main issue, how they plan to enforce that rule.
Interesting, I wasn’t aware of that connection of chess and early islam, though I was somewhat aware that during the 17-19th centuries, in Europe and USA at least, dice games were seen as “street gambling”, but card games were not.
The main issue, how they plan to enforce that rule.
Given it’s the Taliban, my bet (heh) is on them sending the wives and daughters of players to jail “as a warning”
They could just ban gambling instead
…I’m guessing this is another North Korea haircut story?
Making men who play chess wear hijab might help with this problem.
Sounds like someone lost $50 to a game of chess
The fun police back at it
Literally this. They cannot stand the thought of people having a good time.
Yeah. Because gambling never had any detrimental effects on society.
If you think chess is gambling, you really should get a clue.
Bowling stemmed from a gambling ban. It’s gambling if you play a game where you wager money, it doesn’t have to be purely or at all luck based (and technically chess has a luck element since white has an advantage).
Though there’s a good chance this is just a pretext to stop people engaging in things that might make them too good at thinking for themselves.
You can bet on the outcome but that doesn’t make chess itself a game of chance. And you can bet on anything so by that justification you can ban anything.
Yeah, I’m staunchly for legalization of all “vices” but I’m not going to pretend that they’re harmless and aren’t valid reasons to want to get rid of them besides being a kill joy.
People will gamble whether it is legal or not much like drugs, alcohol, guns etc. You either drag as much of it into the light as possibke and regulate it or you just hope whatever is in the dark is “okay”.
Personally I am more in favor of the regulation than the hope.
Maybe it’s really because chess is one of the traditional ways to escape oppression. There’s more than a few top players that have done so, and speak out about it.
I go to Vegas for the chess.
My only solace when it comes to this regime is that it’s too (edit: in)competent to stay in power for long. Hopefully they collapse sooner than later.
I always put my money on black Rook.
You fool! The en passant odds are through the roof!
Chess gambling ?
Is this like computer chess or chess where the board is in a certain configuration, or two dudes just going at it?
I can’t imagine how you’d make a wager. Unless you, yourself are gambling against someone else. Then I guess it doesn’t matter, but that isn’t really gambling it’s just one person paying another to play chess?
…betting on who wins a chess match? A thing that absolutely happens in the betting community?
Honestly, the list of things people don’t bet on is probably shorter.
