BLOOMFIELD HILLS — For Andrew Georgine, the obsession
with poker started with the televised World Poker Tour.
While he had watched poker on TV before, a spiffed-up
tour broadcast of high stakes games of Texas Hold ’em
that displays players’ cards and success probability
rates allowed him to play along with pros.
Soon
enough, Georgine, 17, began playing with his friends
every week. Now, rarely a day goes by that he doesn’t
play.
“It
just like exploded,” said Georgine, a Lahser High School
graduate headed to the University of Tennessee. “Every
single person in school was playing.”
Poker, once relegated to dark smoky basements, has
spread into American living rooms, causing concern among
experts who say gambling is most addictive among young
children.
While industry analysts don’t track gaming patterns
among teens, there is plenty of evidence that poker has
become the new “it.” And parents say they don’t see harm
in a game that keeps their kids at home and sharpens
their minds.
The
poker craze, while seemingly harmless, may promote a
habit that could lead to lifelong problems and, at its
worst, to financial ruin.
There’s no question the game’s popularity has exploded.
It’s making a resurgence in Las Vegas casinos, and
Greektown Casino doubled the number of tables in its
poker room this spring.
Many
attribute the popularity to the televised World Poker
Tour, which added the revolutionary feature that shows
players’ cards on the screen. The show currently is the
highest rated series on the Travel Channel.
An
average of 601,000 homes tuned in to the show during its
opening season in March 2003. The 101st episode June 9
had a viewership of 1.13 million households.
According to the World Poker Tour, there are more than
50 million poker players in the United States, and more
than 100 million worldwide. More people play poker than
play golf, billiards or tennis. The show’s viewership is
66 percent male.
“It’s clearly swept the nation,” said Katherine Newman,
a Princeton University sociology professor with a
15-year-old son who plays poker with friends.
“It’s a social thing for boys, especially those who are
too young to drive, and a way they can connect with one
another before they’re into girls.”
The
game can be a valuable learning tool if stakes are low
and kids are well-supervised, Newman said.
But
others say there’s much to worry about. Once kids start
realizing they can make easy money, they’re going to
continue going back for more, said Michigan State
University professor Dr. Carl Taylor. But they won’t
always win, and could wind up losing more than they can
afford.
While children have always dabbled in card games and
small-scale forms of gambling, this generation is
different, Taylor said.
Today’s children, particularly middle-class suburban
kids, have more access to money than those of earlier
generations and even adults, he said.
“They have access to credit cards, and they don’t pay
car notes or car insurance,” he said. “It’s only going
to get worse. And God help them if they win.”
Police agree that parents might not understand the
dangers.
“It’s going to mushroom into something more than penny
gambling,” said Bill Dwyer, Farmington Police Department
chief and a former Detroit cop who spent years dealing
with illegal gambling.
“We
know it leads to addiction, and we see it escalate to
where adults lose their homes and their families. Every
gambler goes down waiting for the big hit,” he said,
adding that kids who start with penny poker will
eventually end up at casinos when they’re of age and
where stakes are much higher. “Parents need to be more
aware of the consequences.”
Teens say it’s a good way to pass free time. They can
quickly learn the game and on the occasion that they
make bets, it’s an easy way to make — or lose — a little
money. They say nay-sayers should chill out.
“We’re of an age where we’re not allowed to do
anything,” said 17-year-old Anthony Atto, a Bloomfield
Township student who attends Andover High School.
“There’s not that much to do around here — see a movie,
play basketball, and that gets old real quick.”
He
plays every chance he gets, and said he feels he’s
learning something. Anthony said he enjoys improving his
poker skills and doesn’t see a problem with that.
“If
I ever feel the need and I think I’m playing too much,
I’ll take a break and go watch a movie.”
Student Patrick Ratliff, 19, a Lahser High School
graduate who’ll attend the University of Southern
California in the fall, said the competitive aspect of
poker is a big draw.
He
plays four or five times a week, mostly at the homes of
friends such as Kevin Sleboda. But he also gets calls
from kids in other Oakland County neighborhoods. Last
fall, he participated in tournaments that involved 30 to
40 kids from the area.
“It’s amazing how many people play,” he said. “It
spreads by word of mouth. I get calls every night from
Troy, Royal Oak.”
Newman, the Princeton professor, said playing poker can
actually be a positive for kids if there are limits.
“It
depends on how connected parents are to the kids and to
each other,” she said. “We set a very strict limit with
the kids. First, we said they couldn’t play for money at
all. Now, we keep it at $4.”
She
said her son and friends gather around and talk about
school and politics, and practice poker tactics they
learn on TV.
“They have a cast of heroes (from the show), they read
books about it, they learn about the history of
championships, the psychology, risk-taking involved, how
people fool one another,” she said. “It’s a whole
elaborate subculture.”
Kevin Atto, Anthony’s cousin and a school teacher who
quit his teaching job at Lahser High School because his
poker winnings were higher than his paycheck, used the
game as a teaching tool with his high school students.
During advanced placement exams this year, he ran a
tournament in his classroom where candy bars were used
as prizes.
“There’s a lot of math that goes on in the game,” he
said, referring to the popular poker game Texas Hold
‘em.
Students have to learn to figure out odds based on their
own cards and their opponents’.
“The
reason I like it so much is because the students are
interested in it,” he said. “You’re not going to lose
anyone’s attention.
Jennifer Woliung, spokeswoman for the Bloomfield Hills
school district, said neither poker nor gambling is
allowed in schools.
While officials know kids are interested, she said any
gambling is not sanctioned by the school district and if
it happens, it’s outside school grounds.
“A
school district cannot control anything that kids do
outside school boundaries,” she said. “We see it as a
parental issue.”
For
Annie Collins, the discovery that her 15-year-old son
Rusty was playing poker worried her.
She
said she sat with Rusty and explained the dangers of
gambling for money and the possibility of it developing
into an addiction.
“This can lead to other things and there can be a lot of
peer pressure,” she said.
But
her worries were assuaged as she watched her son and his
friends spend hours at home drinking juice, eating pizza
and playing a game that might sharpen their math and
strategic skills.
As a
single mom, she was happy to know he was at home with
friends she knew, rather than out on the street where
teens can fall into other traps. She said kids are
required to keep stakes low.
Karla Williams of Troy, who plays with her children and
husband for chips, not money, agrees. Her 13- and
14-year-old children play Texas Hold ‘em with their
other friends.
“It’s big,” she said. “I’m not interested in them
betting money. But I can’t see that it could hurt them
any more than half the things that they’re doing out
there.”
