Poker popularity at IU concerns some

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Indiana University students are caught up in the popularity of poker tournaments, some playing for fun while others are gambling with their cash.

But a gambling expert says intense poker fascination now could lead to future gambling addiction.

Students say games and tournaments are easy to find with most of them involving little real money, The Herald-Times reported Sunday.
But Brian Smith, an IU student currently in Australia, said he once played 30 straight hours of online poker on his laptop computer. He said he started off with $200, played his way to $3,600 and then lost it all again.

“It took 30 hours of play to take this swing, which, doing the math, was about $7,000 in just about one day and night,” he said.

During poker online, players’ bank accounts are directly linked to the Web site that hosts the games. Smith and his friend, Matt Tendler, said they have stopped playing online.

“Our roommates began to get worried about us because it was literally all we were doing,” Smith said. “Both of us used to play online poker at least once per day, seven days per week.”

This type of poker fanaticism has some gambling experts worried.
Student poker is a major area of concern for the National Council on Problem Gaming, said its director Keith Whyte.

“We believe college gambling is on the increase and gambling on poker has certainly surged,” Whyte said. “We know that the students were always risk-takers; it is a definition of youth. But we believe kids are now betting more money on more intensive types of gambling.”

A recent study found an 84 percent increase in poker playing among male youth in the past year, he said. No other rise in addictive behaviors — smoking, drinking, drug use — compares, he said.

Whyte points to television as the main reason for the dramatic rise in poker playing and gambling among college students.

“Mainly, the glamorization by the broadcast media,” he said. “It sounds trite, but Anheuser-Busch says more about responsible usage in a 30-second ad than most of the poker shows talk about in an hour.”

While some students like Tendler and Smith take their games seriously, poker as recreation, with low or no dollars at stake, is much more common at IU, students say.

MJ Wagner has been playing poker regularly for about three years. He said it is a way to have fun and spend time with friends, not a way to make big money.

“Out of the groups I play with, there are only maybe five people who take it serious and actually play in casinos,” he said.

He plays at southern Indiana’s riverboats about once a month, he said.

Some of the tournaments are sponsored by IU. Wagner said every semester he plays at the IU Series of Poker.

Whyte did say that most young poker players are not problem gamblers. “It is important to say it is fun and recreational for most, and no harm,” he said.

But calls to a problem gambling hot line run by the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration have nearly tripled in the last few years. “And much like the other addictions, the 19-24 age range seems to be the peak,” Whyte said.

http://www.indystar.com - 2005-05-17 03:08:33