TEXAS HOLDEM ONLINE POKER

 

“You guys ready to lose all your money?” asked Sammy Spade*, one of 20 teenage boys gathered at a Boca Raton home for a Texas Holdem poker tournament Thursday night.
“Ready and willing,” said Dicky Diamond* with a sarcastic smile.
After repeatedly watching ESPN’s World Series in Poker, which aired for the first time in March of 2003, the mix of Boca Raton private and public school boys modeled their poker night after the pros.
And theirs isn’t the only teenage gambling ring around, said Diamond, who knows of students from both Spanish River and Saint Andrews who play Holdem in another ring on a regular basis.
Although it began as a once-a-week occasion, Spade said the teens now convene at least four times a week, and have upped the entry fee from five to ten dollars, just to keep things interesting.
“We watched the World Series on T.V. and it looked really fun, and once we started playing it became very addicting,” said Spade. “You pay a little bit of money and have a chance at winning a whole lot.”
Spade said he’s probably won more than he’s lost, but that hasn’t been the case for most of the players at the table.
In fact, Diamond has lost quite a bit of money, not just to friends but also at the racetrack and on the Internet.
“That was such a crock – I heard it was rigged,” said Diamond. “I lost $200 on my credit card in one sitting on partypoker.com. Now I just play for fake money most of the time.”
Diamond estimates there are hundreds of Web sites that offer Texas Holdem and other forms of poker, and said there are also plenty of South Florida venues that host poker tournaments.
Diamond and friends frequent the Pompano Park Harness Track, where they said they play against mostly senior citizens. The boys, who are not yet 18, said they show their fake IDs to get in and usually end up losing all the money they bring.
“I always think I can win, and I end up wasting my weekend money. My mom hates it,” said Diamond. “I told myself I’m going to stop playing for a while.”
And Diamond’s mom isn’t the only parent taking notice.

Checking up
“I hate that they gamble all the time, but I feel that if it’s in my house I can control that there’s no alcohol,” said Linda Nobet*, a parent who allows the poker games to go on at her home.
Although Nobet says she’s glad the kids get together and have a good time without alcohol, she’s worried about the increasing amount of time her son spends at the poker table.
“I noticed that it was occasional at first, but now sometimes he will do it for several nights in a row,” said Nobet. “Last weekend he gambled for four nights straight, including two school nights.”
Because he didn’t win any of the tournaments on those nights, Nobet said her son has decided to cut back, but she’s not so sure that every kid is capable of making that decision.
“The game can be addictive for some people, and I feel like the media is sanctioning gambling by showing Texas Holdem on ESPN,” said Nobet.
And ESPN isn’t the only station that’s making a spectacle of poker. Although it’s not as widely viewed, The World Poker Tour is featured on the Travel Channel once a week.
The 2004 World Poker Tour will be aired starting April 28, and $1.4 million winner Antonio Esfandiari said there’s no reason it shouldn’t.
“I definitely don’t think poker should be taken off TV, but I can’t say that there is no risk,” said Esfandiari, 25. “Kids just naturally pick up whatever they see, but that doesn’t mean you take every controversial sport off television.”
It’s the responsibility of the parents to teach their kids not to gamble until they’re at an age to understand the game, according to Esfandiari, who started playing at 19.
“I think that everybody should play poker when they’re at a legal age,” he said. “It’s a competitive and fun psychological game.”
To Esfandiari, the youngest player to win a World Poker Tour, to win over a million dollars in any poker tournament and to travel on the tour, Holdem Poker is not even gambling.
“I don’t gamble,” he said. “I take calculated risks and put myself in a position to win.”

When to fold
While some teens said that they are doing it competitively, many claim they are merely participating in a leisure activity. But in some cases, the poker has caused problems at school and at home.
Diamond admitted to cutting school to play poker, and taking money from his brother without asking – two of the key signs of a gambling problem, according to the International Center for Youth Gambling Problems and High Risk Behaviors.
Although the treatment of youth gambling addiction is relatively new, the center has conducted extensive research on gambling addicts, and established that most of them started at a young age.
Many addicts say they began gambling around age 10, and that gambling was generally accepted in their families, according to Carmen Messerlian, director of Program Development at the center.
Studies conducted by the center have shown that 4 to 8 percent of child gamblers become problem gamblers.
“They spend more money and time than they wish to,” said Messerlian. “They usually don’t recognize it to be a problem, and they continue to gamble despite the consequences.”
While some games are considered relatively harmless, Messerlian said that many can be gateways to more serious gambling problems.
Texas Holdem is actually not even considered gambling by the state of Florida because the house does not have an advantage. In fact, there is no house at all.
For that reason, Holdem fans argue that showing the game on television is no big deal, but one Boca Raton counselor begs to differ.
“Kids are impacted by a lot that’s going on in the media. I’m sure that ESPN perpetuates the psychology in the adolescents that already have this disposition,” said Tim Sweeney, an addiction counselor who specializes in compulsive gambling.
Sweeney said he’s seen quite a few young people from Boca Raton with gambling problems, and that they exhibit a few common characteristics.
“They’re all very grandiose, and have issues with entitlement. Many of their parents just give and give, and their character structure often becomes crippled because of it.”
Although the field of youth gambling is still evolving, Sweeney recommends that parents do some probing if they suspect their child is either losing or gaining money at an unusual rate.
“If you see your kids buying things you know they can’t afford, something is wrong with the picture.”