CBS columnist bashes gambling, WSOP
 

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Thought you guys would enjoy tearing this one to shreds. I found a bunch of stuff that was unfair/inaccurate. Perhaps he's a moralist, or he's just a loser at poker. Or both.

Re: CBS columnist bashes gambling, WSOP
 

I don't even know where to start.

Re: CBS columnist bashes gambling, WSOP
 

megadooosh

Re: CBS columnist bashes gambling, WSOP
 

FYI ... there's a message board under his column. Just noticed it myself. Flames ON!

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The guy's clearly an idiot and too quick to conflate poker with slots, but his central point about the drawbacks of gambling (including poker) is an important one that doesn't get enough attention among the professional poker community, in my opinion.

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He has a point.

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message board time....

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Perhaps he got rivered on day 1

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In all honesty, it's not a horrible article, of course poker != slots for everyone, but for most people playing the ME it does, that's why it's such a profitable tournament.

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WSOP = celebration of unmitigated degeneracy
Poker Economy = preying on impoverished, gambling addicts
$10,000 buy-in = way over the heads of most people at the WSOP

I don't disagree with this article in a lot of ways. Of course, this guy gives no credit to poker as being a game of skill and experience, and seems generally misinformed as to the fundamental nature of the game.

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Oh noes! People have gambling problems!

Of course oh noes, people have alcohol problems or driving fast problems or...

Re: CBS columnist bashes gambling, WSOP
 

I just don't understand what he's suggesting. Should they not hold the WSOP ME? Should it not be televised? "Gambling is bad" is not a new concept, so what's his point?

I think it's more a dig at ESPN's coverage than the event itself. And if CBS were televising it, do you think they'd have reacted so positively when Doyel ambled into his editor's office and said, "Hey boss, gambling is bad for people. I want to break the story in my column."

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I think his point is:

No matter how much self control you have, no matter how small limits you play, you are helpless in the matter and you will lose all the disposable money you have access to.

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LMFA & ROFL @ 1000$ Life savings (in the US that is.... ).... if you suck that bad at life, gamboling is the least of your worries !!!!

Funny how he envokes the freedom argument for boxing, racing, cage fighting - NO PROBLEM.... but the EVIL POKER !! - this is where the freedom must end and the people must be protected from themselves !!!
Get a [censored] life you [censored] mother [censored] !!

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He's much more right than he is wrong. Out of all the gamblers out there, what fraction of them are people who play poker for a living, or at least for an intellectual stimulation in a financially responsible way? I feel like I have to take a shower every time I go through the casino to the poker room.

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The author, Gregg Doyel, is well-known for being a huge douche. I have flamed him on the message boards and sent him hate mail directly on many occasions.

Last year he wrote an article that said, in essence, that because Ryan Howard was hitting a lot of home runs the presumption should be that he's using steroids or HGH.

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LMFA & ROFL @ 1000$ Life savings (in the US that is.... ).... if you suck that bad at life, gamboling is the least of your worries !!!!

Funny how he envokes the freedom argument for boxing, racing, cage fighting - NO PROBLEM.... but the EVIL POKER !! - this is where the freedom must end and the people must be protected from themselves !!!
Get a [censored] life you [censored] mother [censored] !!

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Having $1000 in savings doesn't necessarily mean you suck at life. Maybe life sucks for you. You obviously would be surprised at how many people in this country get paid very, very little, even for things they like and/or are good at, or they are victims of circumstance, so if you insist on ROFLYAO, at least have the decency to feel like a jerk while you do.

Re: CBS columnist bashes gambling, WSOP
 

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LMFA & ROFL @ 1000$ Life savings (in the US that is.... ).... if you suck that bad at life, gamboling is the least of your worries !!!!

Funny how he envokes the freedom argument for boxing, racing, cage fighting - NO PROBLEM.... but the EVIL POKER !! - this is where the freedom must end and the people must be protected from themselves !!!
Get a [censored] life you [censored] mother [censored] !!

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Having $1000 in savings doesn't necessarily mean you suck at life. Maybe life sucks for you. You obviously would be surprised at how many people in this country get paid very, very little, even for things they like and/or are good at, or they are victims of circumstance, so if you insist on ROFLYAO, at least have the decency to feel like a jerk while you do.

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You got a point I did put that like a jerk - what I really meant is only having 1000$ life savings and then taking these 1000$ to the casion = sucking at life [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

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LMFA & ROFL @ 1000$ Life savings (in the US that is.... ).... if you suck that bad at life, gamboling is the least of your worries !!!!


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The majority of Americans don't have this much in savings...they are in fact deeply in credit card debt. Most people that do have a significant asset only have one in the form of their house, and the article points out that this woman's house was destroyed in the hurricane. Some posters on this board are really clueless as to what life is like for most people.

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Ignorant article.

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LMFA & ROFL @ 1000$ Life savings (in the US that is.... ).... if you suck that bad at life, gamboling is the least of your worries !!!!

Funny how he envokes the freedom argument for boxing, racing, cage fighting - NO PROBLEM.... but the EVIL POKER !! - this is where the freedom must end and the people must be protected from themselves !!!
Get a [censored] life you [censored] mother [censored] !!

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Having $1000 in savings doesn't necessarily mean you suck at life. Maybe life sucks for you. You obviously would be surprised at how many people in this country get paid very, very little, even for things they like and/or are good at, or they are victims of circumstance, so if you insist on ROFLYAO, at least have the decency to feel like a jerk while you do.

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You got a point I did put that like a jerk - what I really meant is only having 1000$ life savings and then taking these 1000$ to the casion = sucking at life [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

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That, I agree with wholeheartedly. Thanks for the clarification.

And I too was dumbfounded at the idea that a sport where people take each others' money is seamier than race-car driving, a sport where people crash into each other frequently, sometimes dying, in an effort to win the most money. I just can't take that columnist seriously.

Having worked in newspapers, here's what I'm guessing happened here:
-The WSOP rolls around and ol' boy decides he hates gambling. He asks his editor if he can write a column about it, and editor says OK.
-He writes the column, and it's full of holes. Logical errors, lack of focus, the whole bit.
-Editor decides, Well since the event is already here, it's more important that the column be timely than good. Let's run it, and if it sucks, at least it'll start an argument on the message board and drive up our online traffic.

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Oh noes! People have gambling problems!

Of course oh noes, people have alcohol problems or driving fast problems or...

[/ QUOTE ]Alright. How much do I get for hitting the trifecta. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

Seriously, I didn't read the article once I saw it mentioned that it was written by Gregg Doyel. He's a complete douche who is always trying to stir [censored] up.

Re: CBS columnist bashes gambling, WSOP
 

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And I too was dumbfounded at the idea that a sport where people take each others' money is seamier than race-car driving, a sport where people crash into each other frequently, sometimes dying, in an effort to win the most money.

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Now you're doing some misrepresentation on your own. You don't win money by crashing other people, you win money by finishing first (or as close as you can manage). Crashing is just something that happens occasionally as racers try to accomplish that.

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LMFA & ROFL @ 1000$ Life savings (in the US that is.... ).... if you suck that bad at life, gamboling is the least of your worries !!!!


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right , but if 1000$ is all you have to your name, what on earth would make you take it all to a casino? That doesn't seem like a gambling problem to me, but rather being just plain stupid !!!! (And I have a hard time feeling sorry for people that behave like that. So I think it is safe to assume that they make the same quality decisions in the rest of their lifes) And yes I do feel sympathetic towards people that get into tough spots by acts of god / accidents... but those are not the type of people that take life savings to Casions....

.... but then on second thought.... maybe that is part of the gamboling problem.. I really don't know anymore (and will just STFU)

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What an idiot. Its not just that he equates poker to all other forms of gambling, its just that he assumes that the MAJORITY of people who gamble are degenerates who lose their paychecks.

I'm sure you could make the same argument about alcohol (College kids wasting time/dropping out, lives being ruined, etc.) The problem is, gambling is no more likely to lead to catastrophic bad behavior than drinking. smoking, or eating high fat foods.

Yeah, Vegas has a dark side. Stop the friggin' presses! Who with a brain doesn't know that? No mention of the downside of gambling during the broadcasts? Has he not seen the 'responsible gambling" spots? Are those pap and filler? Sure, but no more than the "drink responsibly" segments from breweries or the Surgeon General's warnings on cigarettes.

Bad enough we have holy roller politicians fighting freedom, now we have ignorant sportswriters, too. [img]/images/graemlins/mad.gif[/img]

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And I too was dumbfounded at the idea that a sport where people take each others' money is seamier than race-car driving, a sport where people crash into each other frequently, sometimes dying, in an effort to win the most money.

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Now you're doing some misrepresentation on your own. You don't win money by crashing other people, you win money by finishing first (or as close as you can manage). Crashing is just something that happens occasionally as racers try to accomplish that.

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Dude, that was what I meant. Not to split hairs, but I thought it was made clear that crashing is a side-effect of the effort, not its whole. If not, my bad.

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I agree with the 3rd to last paragraph he wrote, but I don't agree with his overall lumping of poker in with the rest of gambling. Problems occur, addictions arise but it cannot all be poker's fault.

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Mass behavioral manipulation in the guise of saving us from ourselves. The funny thing is that this guy doesn't understand that he is nothing more than a tool himself. We live in a society in which all of our institutions work hand in hand to protect and foster order and stability for the benefit of those who have power and money. Its pretty clever. Works a lot better than force.

The WSOP entrants are the type of folks who scare the hell out of the establishment because they are risk takers. The spirit of these people is remarkably similar to that of the founding fathers, who elbowed aside the British nobility for their slice of the pie.

Ironically, the decendants of those "patriots" are among those who now wish to supress the behavior exhibited in Vegas along with <font color="red"> any other</font> nonconformist activity.

Ever wonder why?

If there is anything I am sure of, its not to protect us.

Shuffle up and deal.

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So I looked up how many golf courses there are in America, 16944. You figure that its 50$ for a round of golf and most golf addicts probably spend 1k a year on gear and golf at least every week. Thats about 3k a year, for someone to enjoy the game or try to become a professional. At 100 addicts per course thats 5 Billion dollars spent on golf each year.

And I bet less than 1% of golfers have every made a dime from playing.

How is this a more respectable hobby than poker?

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"The freedom to gamble is like the freedom to smoke crack or inject herion."

Right on, I have no disagreements.

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Interesting sidebar: the current chipleader, Jon Moonves, is the brother of CBS CEO Les Moonves.

Clearly Les should fire this employee. Just kidding. I'm a newspaper columnist, so freedom of speech rules.

Edit to give credit to poker biz for this info.

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I wrote a big response to him about the lack of balance and completely biased point of view, as well as his total lack of knowledge of the subject he was writing about. Everyone playing high stakes is addicted or stupid? Then I wrote CBS, tricky to find email, this is it

http://www.sportsline.com/help/contactus

included letter to Greg, said how could they exercise such poor editorial oversight, to let a completely biased, one-sided hit piece with no-understanding of it's subject, and only one hazy statistic with no citation to support the main claim of the piece, that most of us are crazy addicts, and none of us are long-run profitable. That this was most disappointing as the piece was next to another on "How to become a pro", and it is those types of pieces that give kids that wrong kind of idea about how easy it is. There is also a king of blog, but they only seem to put up comment about how great they are, so I didn't bother.

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Clearly Les should fire this employee

Huh? If I were his boss, I could only justify firing him if his column cost the company money. Sure he's an idiot, but controversey drives viewers/readers and viewers/readers drive revenue. [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

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He has a point.

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Actually, he doesn't. There's a good point that could be made, i.e. that even amidst the over the top spectacle / celebration of poker that is the WSOP we should still recognize that gambling addiction is a serious problem for some people and that poker can be that gambling addiction for some players.

But instead he's making this point:

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Freedom to gamble is like freedom to inhale crack or inject heroin. You may enjoy it once or twice or a hundred times. You may be that one unlikely person impervious to its evil lure. But in most cases the addiction will eventually win.

Every day around the country, people -- regular people like you or me -- lose their job or home or car or wife or kids or all of the above because they cannot stop gambling. Regular people go to jail. Regular people commit suicide. Because of gambling.

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And that's not much of a point at all. I have no doubt that Vegas simply could not exist as a gambling city if it was only some rare freak that could gamble but avoid the life ruinning gambling addiction and that the vast majority of gamblers became life destroyed addicts. In fact, as we know, gambling addiction is the exception rather than the rule.

--Zetack

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Clearly Les should fire this employee

Huh? If I were his boss, I could only justify firing him if his column cost the company money. Sure he's an idiot, but controversey drives vierers/readers and viewrs/readers drive revenue. [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

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Yeah, I meant that as a joke and changed my post.

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Doyel(the author) is an anagram for Doyle.

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He has a point.

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He sure does. Right on top of his head.

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Jimmy,

Sorry bro but there's nothing transgressive about playing poker. I get where you're coming from, but these days, especially at the WSOP, it's an industry itself that's quickly territorialized by big money.

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Clearly Les should fire this employee

Huh? If I were his boss, I could only justify firing him if his column cost the company money. Sure he's an idiot, but controversey drives vierers/readers and viewrs/readers drive revenue. [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

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Yeah, I meant that as a joke and changed my post.

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Fair enough. &lt;sarcastic comment on your taste in pseudo-beer deleted.&gt; [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

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Doyel(the author) is an anagram for Doyle.

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No wai!!!

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He writes for a site that offers gambling in the form of fantasy sports and has an entire section dedicated to poker. I wonder how he feels about that.