from the getting-younger-and-younger dept
We've been wary of news reports over the past few years hyping up various folks who were supposedly making all kinds of money playing online poker. While there clearly are some professional sharks out there who basically prey on bad poker players to take their money, almost every news story seemed to focus on people who (surprise, surprise) only claimed to win money (often lots of it). That's why we were skeptical of the story about a startup that skipped out on raising venture capital, and instead worked on funding the company through poker. Then there were the college students who felt that playing online poker was the best way to pay for college tuition. Even if these stories were accurate, leaving out how rare it is for someone to be able to make that much money in online poker seemed fairly irresponsible. The latest story, however, takes the cake. The San Jose Mercury News has apparently found a bunch of teenagers who saying that playing online poker is much better than getting a summer job. The article tries to portray this plan as not all that unreasonable, because (so the article notes), the kids approach the game as a job, rather than just as "gambling."
Oddly, the article brushes over the fact that online poker remains illegal in the US (well, at least according to the DOJ's interpretation of the law, over which there is some dispute) and most sites have age limits that these kids probably didn't qualify for when they started playing. While the ones profiled are now 19, at least one admits he's been playing online poker since he was a junior in high school. Obviously, a first question from many folks would be about the parents of these kids. Some are quoted, and they seem slightly embarrassed, but at the same time seem somewhat pleased that their kid is making some cash and doesn't need to borrow money any more. Some might take this article and use it as an argument against the evils of online gambling -- but that would be wrong. It really should be about yet another story in the press that plays up the gambling industry's marketing ploy that "anybody" can become rich gambling, while hiding and playing down the much more likely scenario of people losing money (sometimes a lot). While this article mentions that most people lose money gambling, it buries it in a single sentence towards the end. Suggesting that online gambling is somehow a suitable summer job replacement also seems particularly questionable. I have no doubt that some young folks are making a ton of money while playing online poker, and I think that the US's position in trying to ban online poker is silly and unreasonable -- but it still seems quite odd that so many stories about online poker seem to focus on the success stories, rather than those who ended up losing tremendous amounts of money.
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