Sunday NY Times Magazine 5000 word article on online poker

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1.) Instead of helping you to quit playing poker, Gambler's Anonymous teaches you how to recognize fish? WTF?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

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I'm pretty sure that quote/section of the article was grossly distorting the truth. Gambler's Anonymous, as I understand it, does not teach you "b&m gamlbliing is ok, just not online." Or "how to gamble in control." As I understand it, people in GA are told that they have to give up ALL GAMBLING because they have a sickness that they cannot control, and only by completely withdrawing from gambling can they control their behavior. (Much like recovering alcoholics are never again allowed to touch a drop of alcohol).

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From their website:

Can a compulsive gambler ever gamble normally again?

No. The first bet to a problem gambler is like the first small drink to an alcoholic.

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The article says that it was a counselor at Lehigh who said live was ok, but online was evil, not GA.
"Hogan's parents arranged for him to meet with a Lehigh counselor. He was told that live poker was harmless but to stay away from online."

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Yeah, but the article seems to say that right after a GA meeting he went to a live casino with his mentor or whatever. Probably just bad writing/editing.

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Casino poker is great and online poker kills people. Seems well written to me.

At least they put in the real reason for the article at the end.

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online gambling's gray legal status allows operators to avoid paying more than $7 billion a year in federal taxes.

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But would the Feds find it any easier to arrest corporations in Gibraltar and Costa Rica who aren't paying taxes? And how the F would you calculate any tax owed to the U.S. (vs. the Czech Republic or wherever the other players are from)? Probably even a bigger gray area than gambling itself.

Or are they assuming all the fish would give $$$ to live casinos? Not a chance in hell.

[BraveInca]

No wonder the kid ended-up as a whack job:

"On Sundays, Greg's mother, Karen, would dress him and his two brothers in matching slacks and blazers and take them and their sister to hear Greg Sr. preach..."

"Schooled at home through eighth grade,..."

[ski]

wow, I had no idea so many college students played Poker online. they GOTTA be counting play money? To me it seems like there are only like 10,000 players (anyone have a better figure?) that are able to do this for a living. The rest are slight winners or losers?

[belgianbeerlover]

I really love this part..

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He had not and would not read any of the half-dozen books that together give a rough grasp of how hard hold 'em is to master

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There were always some of these pros online...

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They were waiting for him the night Lehigh's football team lost to rival Lafayette, when Hogan, who'd organized a cheering section, felt a little down...

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They followed him home over Thanksgiving weekend...

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He lost $1,500...

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Maybe it's wrong, but I found this section really funny. It felt like a scarey movie.

[wins_pot]

"slanted in a way to make it sound like anyone could become a compulsive gambler."

IMO, anyone could become a compulsive gambler ---- in the same NYT, they profile golfer Rocco Mediate and he admits to playing online poker compulsively.

a dean at harvard says online gambling is now a bigger problem at harvard than drugs or alcohol.

good article --- it's inspired me to start on poker novel #2.

brandon

[kiemo]

I love the google gambling ads at the bottom of each page of the article.

[BigDave]

"Never before have the means to lose so much been so available to so many at such a young age."

Years ago when I was in college, you could walk anywhere on campus and run into a "fill out this form for a credit card and get a T-Shirt" guy. I know so many people that ran up so much debt on these cards, well over $7500, many of which who are still digging out over 10 years later. Is that really any different?

This whole story is too much. Son of a preacher robs a bank because of online poker? I am surprised there were no pictures of Satan dealing.

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a dean at harvard says online gambling is now a bigger problem at harvard than drugs or alcohol.

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Harvard? C'mon now. There was like one alcoholic and three dopeheads in my entire residential house of several hundred.

[I.Rowboat]

First, a bit of context; the theme of the Sunday NYT magazine this week was "debt". All articles in the magazine (with the possible exception of the recipes) related to debt in some way.

I read the article yesterday, and found it to be unbalanced. The article seemed to suggest that schools are at fault for not better policing their students' online activities. Furthermore, Hogan Jr., the would-be bank robber and losing player, is only mildly castigated for playing like a fish; the article only mentioned in passing that poker is a game of skill that's difficult to master. I guess this is my real beef with the article: poker IS a game of skill -- minutes to learn, lifetime to master, etc.

And just so there's no confusion, the purpose of the game is to *take the other players' money*. There shouldn't be any ambiguity about this. Hogan would have been perfectly happy winning some other slob's money, so why should we feel pity on him for losing his? He should not have played with money he could not afford to lose. Period. It's a harsh lesson but one I think everyone on this board has had to learn for themselves, and college is a great time/place to learn it. Of course gambling can be compulsive, and of course compulsive gamblers can ruin their lives and the lives of their loved ones, but the article seemed pretty weak in its assignment of responsibility. Hogan played a game of skill poorly, he played when he was tired and on tilt. He played for increasingly bigger stakes in an effort to recoup earlier losses. In other words, he was giving money away hand over fist. I would not wish his predicament on anyone, but c'mon, the article was way too easy on him. He played a losing game against people who were playing to win. See The Hustler for a big screen version of this sort of behavior, only one with more talent and less bank robbing.

If the centerpiece of the article had been about "Phys," the winning player mentioned in the article who had $160k in his online account, all of the factual aspects would have been just as true, but instead of talking to the guy who snapped and tried to rob a bank, we would have had 500 words on how some college student studied the game for x weeks/months/years and steadily improved from playing for pennies to winning thousands in a night or weekend; Horatio Alger with a PokerStars account. Interesting, but probably not as sexy a story as the preacher's son who lost $7500 and tried to rob a bank to get even.

So, yeah, online poker can be a bad thing if you lose your shirt and resort to robbing banks, but it could also be a good thing if, through skill and patience, you manage to put yourself through college with your winnings. The American mythos is dotted with stories of people who used their poker skills to better themselves -- Harry Truman and Richard Nixon come immediately to mind. Online poker is not evil, any more than corner liquor stores are evil - they are a means of access, and what you do once you have access is a personal matter. Responsibility and moderation are personal behaviors that must be learned, and college is the perfect place to learn them.

So parents, teach your kids to act responsibly. Irresponsible behavior is the thing to be stamped out, not online poker.