CBS columnist bashes gambling, WSOP

[PokeReader]

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.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

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]

[Zetack]

[ QUOTE ]
He has a point.

[/ QUOTE ]

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:

[ QUOTE ]
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.

[/ QUOTE ]

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

[idrinkcoors]

[ QUOTE ]
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]

[/ QUOTE ]

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

[jogsxyz]

Doyel(the author) is an anagram for Doyle.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

[ QUOTE ]
He has a point.

[/ QUOTE ]

He sure does. Right on top of his head.

[Foucault]

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.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
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]

[/ QUOTE ]

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

[/ QUOTE ]

Fair enough. <sarcastic comment on your taste in pseudo-beer deleted.> [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[iversonian]

[ QUOTE ]
Doyel(the author) is an anagram for Doyle.

[/ QUOTE ]

No wai!!!

[Homer]

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.