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.
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.