Kids raise the stakes in poker

It wasn't long into his poker-playing career that Wyatt Sparks realized he had developed a "tell." The 14-year-old had a distinctive way of acting when he looked at his cards, and all the other eighth-graders would bet accordingly.

"Whenever I had a good hand I'd look down at my chips and then I'd look away like I didn't care about the hand," Wyatt said.

The Bronxville Middle School student soon learned to mask his emotions better. He had no choice — his classmates were tough competitors. Like many of his friends, Wyatt plays once or twice a week, and poker playing has become, mostly among boys, an integral part of the social scene. They meet in basements to drink soda and watch television, and then play cards for money.

It's become so pervasive that not even kids new to the weekend games need to be taught. With the proliferation of games on television and the Internet, "Most people know how to play," Wyatt said.

Poker has taken hold in a big way over the past two years, and not just among school kids. The poker game of choice is Texas Hold'em, the variation popularized by the World Series of Poker on ESPN and in tournaments on Bravo and The Travel Channel. College players in Rockland County organize tournaments and play in their dorms. In a Peekskill basement, the Westchester Poker League sets a $35 buy-in for weekend games.

Paul Lewis, a 54-year-old teacher at Irvington who was a bridge champion in college, got back into cards when the Texas Hold'em craze hit. He started to play again, and it wasn't long before his son Adam, now 13, wanted to come along.

"My son was right at my heels because he's inherited the game-playing gene from me and he's very mathematical," Lewis said. "We're close and he got interested in what I was doing and started asking if he could watch."

Adam, an honors math student at Irvington Middle School, speaks of "odds" and "probabilities" a lot when he discusses playing.

He watched the older players carefully one night after going out in a local house tournament, observing patiently despite the lack of chips in front of him. He doesn't like the game because of the betting, he said, but he can't see playing without it.

"I like it because it makes the game more exciting," he said.

Lewis is not worried about putting his son in an adult environment or teaching him to bet, although he acknowledges the dangers for some. He — like many other parents — sees the game as a way to bond with his son.

Dom Gaccino runs the loosely knit Westchester Poker League from a basement in his Peekskill home. The Lewises are among a dozen players on a slow Friday night in April. Gaccino has set out a meal: a tray of ziti warmed by a Sterno can, sodas and alcohol.

"It's more fun than just buying a Lotto ticket," WPL member Carlos Castillo of the Bronx said. "... If you spend the night at a bar you end up spending a lot of money anyway."

Gaccino, 30, used to live in Yonkers, and had trouble finding a regular game when he moved north. When his son Benjamin was born a year ago, his wife told him to use the basement for games as long as half of his winnings went into a college fund.

"I play poker; I don't gamble," Gaccino said. "I don't play blackjack and I don't play craps. I decided I wanted to learn poker, not just gamble on it."

A card game reborn
Chris Moneymaker, minus the mirrored glasses he wore while winning the 2003 World Series of Poker on ESPN at age 27, might as well have been the Pied Piper. Kids trailed him at a recent Scarsdale fundraiser as he walked from the entrance to the poker table.

"I used to watch him on TV," said 14-year-old Robert Gage of Scarsdale, who sat at the table vying against Moneymaker for chips they could later redeem for prizes.

There wasn't one adult in the game as the youngsters asked Moneymaker for advice on playing their hands. "Chris, when you won the World Series," asked one, "how much did you win?"

"I'll be at airports and kids 11 or 12 years old will walk up and ask for my autograph," said Moneymaker, who won $2.5 million with the title. "I expected fans my age or near my age."

Instead, he is an icon of the X-Box set, and he's fine with it. Moneymaker said that it was up to parents to teach their children about money and gambling, but that he didn't see a problem.

"I think poker is a great game for kids," he said. "It keeps them off the street and it keeps them with their friends. It's a very social game."

Bob Silver's Camp Sussex in New Jersey helps disadvantaged kids. He stood to gain $50,000 from the Scarsdale event, of which Moneymaker was just a part, and didn't see the money as tainted.

"With public money on the decline and the funds being cut from every government resource, you have to do it how you can do it," Silver said. "It's a very creative way to get it. It's not like we have gambling at the camp."

At least, not yet. The game has taken such hold across the nation in the past few years that casinos, including Foxwoods in Connecticut, are adding poker tables, even though the game is not a money maker for the house. Given the popularity of Texas Hold'em, casino operators use the game the way they do Eiffel Tower replicas — as a way to draw people in.

There are local tournaments for charity and casino nights at schools. One Scarsdale elementary school teacher told of a classroom birthday party with a poker theme, where the fourth-graders bet with candy. It may seem harmless, but combine the aspect of wagering with minors and things get complicated.

"It's a big deal and I have concerns about the gambling aspect because it is an addictive behavior," Wyatt Sparks' mother, Pam, said. "But it seems the boys have set limits for themselves."

She is more comfortable with the set buy-in, which prevents players from reaching deeper in their pockets with every hand. But such safeguards are not reassuring to those who deal with gambling addicts.

Wagering concern
Frank Limone runs the problem Gambling Recovery Program at Westchester Jewish Community Services in Mamaroneck. He has scheduled recovering habitual gamblers to speak at high schools such as Suffern and Ardsley.

"What's going on is the same kind of rush you're getting from using," Limone said. "It's not about the money, it's about being in the action."

Limone, who has about 30 clients he works with in recovery, said some young gamblers racked up thousands in debts on credit cards, or suffered from major depression after a poker binge.

"The general attitude is, 'At least I know where my children are,' " he said. "For Christmas and Hanukkah, kids were getting Texas Hold'em sets."

Not at Neil Galli's house. The father of three boys was stunned by what he read on a flyer aimed at Clarkstown North High School seniors. His eldest was invited to a graduation event at Westchester Country Club featuring things like volleyball, basketball and tennis. But what caught his eye was the inclusion of "casino games" at a school-sponsored event.

Galli echoes concerns that wagering encourages kids to be irresponsible or impulsive with money.

"It's setting them up to do this when they're adults," Galli said. "It's a bad habit to get into. ... A vice is a vice. I'm not going to say, 'My kid's not taking drugs so I'm happy he's playing poker.' What happens when he starts losing $500 a weekend?"

Television boost
Ask anyone how the game took root in so many niches, and nearly everyone says it was the television exposure. Flip channels and it's possible to find two regularly scheduled poker tours and a celebrity version of the game, with stars such as Heather Graham and Curt Schilling.

In 1998 a moderately successful film called "Rounders" explored the psychology of the game, but the real breakthrough came from the World Series of Poker, a Las Vegas competition dating from 1970, especially when Moneymaker won as an unknown.

Players can buy their way into nationally televised tournaments at which the best might become household names. There is an every-person quality to the players that exists in few competitions outside of reality TV. You could never buy your way into a baseball game.

ESPN started getting calls from reporters almost as soon as it bulked up its World Series of Poker coverage two years ago. Often, they wanted ESPN's response to reports that minors were learning to gamble by watching poker. ESPN says that parents, however, rarely complain to the network.

"We run (Public Service Announcements) during all the telecasts," ESPN executive producer Mike Antinoro said. "We don't really focus on the gambling aspect as much as the prize. ... We certainly feel like there is a responsibility there."

The average viewer falls into the 18- to 34-year-old age demographic, and sponsors, like the male performance-enhancing Levitra, bolster that claim. But ESPN draws plenty of minors, and the network's traditional programming has gained it the trust of parents.

The online ESPN Poker Club says players must be over 21 and there are no cash bets. The network is even marketing books and its own brand of poker chips and tabletops. But that's a crowded marketplace, as a walk into any sporting goods store will show.

Intramurals
In the past few months, at least two Rockland colleges held Texas Hold'em contests. Hal Renaudo, a student resident adviser at Hertel Hall at Dominican College in Orangeburg and an avid poker player, said the idea was a response to student requests.

"We're not proposing gambling as something glorious, but so many kids are playing it anyway, why not make it fun, legal and fair?" said the 20-year-old elementary education major from Yorktown.

Dohn Harshbarger, Dominican's vice president for student development and dean of students, noted that the student handbook prohibited any form of gambling on school premises but said he didn't think the activities were gambling.

"There is no question that there is a parallel, but the use of money is not the object and that is where the addiction comes in, where you keep raising the pot," Harshbarger said. "It's not to encourage them to gamble and there is no money changing hands in terms of raising the pot."

In Sparkill, St. Thomas Aquinas College paid outside vendor Good Guy Productions of Bloomingdale, N.Y., to bring in poker tables and chips for a February event.

"It's gone from being an old whiskey, put-your-gun-under-the-table sport to more of a gentleman's game," said Eric Wilson, founder of the company, which offers a variety of social activities and events to colleges.

Though poker has increasingly become a bigger chunk of Wilson's business, he isn't convinced the card game will produce more gambling addicts.

"I just don't see this as being more addictive than alcohol, cigarettes or betting on a football game," Wilson said. "I don't see this as driving people to a new addiction."

House rules
In February the Bronxville Field Club held a tournament where parents could play with their children. The event drew about 100 players who each paid $30 to play, and the proceeds went toward the relief effort for South Asian tsunami victims.

"We were definitely looking for something that the kids were interested in, not just an adult thing to drag the kids to," said Field Club member Jackie Bunn, whose son Bryan is a senior at the high school.

"My parents knew I played poker every weekend and they wanted to play with me," Bryan said.

The night began at 5 p.m. with a poker tutorial put on by Bryan and fellow high school student Ned Chase. There were several tables for each grade starting with eighth, but by about 9:30 the players left fit at one table per grade.

With a few exceptions, the final tables were filled with students, their parents having lost earlier. But for the parents it was a way to connect with their children, to get a window into something that takes an increasing portion of their kids' free time.

"You must get interested in what your children are interested in," Jackie Bunn said. "Or else you will be living on different planets."

http://www.thejournalnews.com - 2005-05-30 04:07:25