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.
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.
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.
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.
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.