There was a thread awhile ago entitled "When should you be paid to play?" in which this question came up, because I mentioned it as a common practice where I come from (Ottawa), to have a paid (by the pub) host for a session. I was surprised that it was considered controversial or questionable by some.

The reason it seems to work is that it provides continuity and a particular personality to a given session. On philosophical grounds you might prefer an egalitarian approach, but that translates into nobody getting paid, (since no pub owner in the world is going to pay everyone that shows up, and damn few professional musicians, understandably, care to split up their nights' pay with everyone else who happens to be at the table at closing time) and these sessions just don't seem to have longevity.

I think its odd that you think of these folks as "ringers"--odd in the sense that every session I know of is advertised by its host pub as "Celtic Session with host So-And-So"--this is only good business and makes the whole matter straightforward and ethically above board. Beats the hell out of me why they wouldn't advertise who the person they're paying is, since they're expecting his/her presence to draw both other players and listeners. If that's the case, I can see why you're ambivalent.

Willie-O