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Students Suckered into Poker Sites
Published: 2006-02-21
 Internet gambling forums entice hopeful students with gimmicks and cash
BY AUDREY AGAHAN
Forget playing poker with your broke buddies. Now you can play online with people from everywhere at any time of day on Web sites like PartyPoker.net.
Online poker is becoming a big trend among college students. It could be the rush of playing against someone who can’t see your “poker face” or maybe just the plain old addictive quality of the game.
Although the game could be fun, and could win you some money, most people end up losing way more than they realize.
Although many students lose money to these Web sites, there are those lucky few who do end up winning.
Sherwyn Tibayan, a senior hotel and restaurant management student, won $2000 in a tournament on PartyPoker.net.
“I cashed out immediately and bought a flat screen TV with part of my winnings.”
I won’t deny the fact that people can win on these Web sites, but the more I talk to people who play, the more I hear, “I was so close to winning that hand or tournament,” or “I’m just going to play until I win and then I’ll stop or at least when I break even.”
People say this but still continue to play.
Maybe because losing $5 may not seem like a lot at first, but then it starts to add up. Especially if you can’t fiddle with your poker chips or physically see your money being taken away by the person next to you. A few clicks of the mouse can lose you a great deal of money in a matter of minutes.
Playing online cuts out the time and experience of playing with your friends. In the time it takes to play one game with your friends and only losing maybe $5 to $20, you could have played multiple hands online and lost the amount of money in the entire “pot” among your friends.
It makes the game more impersonal and takes the fun out of it.
Online poker takes away the skill needed to read your opponents’ facial expressions which may lend clues to their hand.
This seems to give some people courage when playing online, especially people who get nervous or are bad at lying.
“People forget you can still observe their playing patterns even if you can’t see their face, but it is scary not being able to see your opponent because you could be playing a poker veteran or a room full of people posing as one person and in that case there might not be a pattern,” said Sophie Lopez, a third-year psychology student.
Online poker Web sites are targeting college students by using marketing gimmicks such as “Win Your Tuition,” according to a recent article on Poynter.org. Although Texas Hold ‘Em and other types of poker games require skill, much of the game is played on the luck of the draw.
In that same article, one student was reported to have played more than 17,000 hands of cards in less than three months.
I could have probably bought a new car or paid for my tuition for all four years here.
Maybe they should change their slogan to “gamble away your tuition money.”
Audrey Agahan can be reached by e-mail at opinions@thepolypost.com or by phone at (909) 869-3531.
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Bill would let charities planning poker nights to hold 'em
Published: 2006-02-17
 The California Assembly has upped the ante on charity poker by approving legislation that would allow a wide variety of nonprofits to hold fundraisers using gambling.
The bill, introduced by Alberto Torrico, D-Newark, is given a good chance of passage in the Senate where it now awaits action. Attorney General Bill Lockyer is a sponsor.
Current law allows charities little more than bingo or a raffle. Playing poker or Pai Gow poker is not allowed.
The Almaden Business Association ran afoul of the poker ban last October when it planned to hold a Texas Hold 'em poker fundraiser to pay for furniture in a planned children's story room in the new Almaden library branch.
Three days before the event, the attorney general's office warned the business association that its fundraising plans were illegal. That didn't keep the association from raising money. When the association's poker plight became known, donations came rolling in, including $10,000 from the San Jose-based Brandenburg Family Foundation. In the end, the business association raised twice the $15,000 it had hoped for.
"It hit a nerve with a lot of people," says Rich De La Rosa, who serves this year as the president of the business association, an affiliate of the San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce. "All we were trying to do is raise money for a children's' story time area at the public library. "
The Almaden branch of the library is scheduled to open this spring -- with the donated furniture in the story room.
At the same time that the attorney general's office was pulling the plug on poker in San Jose, it was working with Mr. Torrico on a bill that would make charity poker legal.
"Many of California's gambling laws were written in the 19th Century, and some of them need to be modernized," says Nathan Barankin, a spokesman for the attorney general's office.
Mr. Torrico says the need has been underscored by the federal government's increasing reliance on non-profits and faith-based programs to take care of social programs.
"This would allow nonprofits to raise money for good causes," Mr. Torrico says.
The bill is opposed by the Coalition Against Gambling Expansion and by Artichoke Joe's, a Casino in San Bruno, for the same reason: It would, they say, allow the expansion of gambling in California.
"We think the state has seen an unjustified expansion of gambling in every sector," says Fred Jones, the attorney for the coalition. Allowing non-profits, not just charities to hold gambling events, means that trade associations and unions could try to use poker to raise money, he says and asks, "Where is it going to end? Where are we going to draw the line?"
The proposed law would put restrictions on the gambling:
Gamblers can play only for prizes, not cash, and the total value of prizes cannot exceed $5,000;
A total of 90 percent of the money raised must go to purpose of the fundraising;
Gamblers must be at least 21 years old;
The non-profit or charity can hold only one such fundraiser a year, and the hall where the game is held can hold no more than two gambling fundraisers in a year.
Mr. Barankin says any group that wants to hold a fundraiser must be a legitimate non-profit that has been on the books for at least a year.
"This is not a green light to every bar in the state to reorganize as a nonprofit," he says.
TIMOTHY ROBERTS covers public policy, corporate governance and Internet security for the Business Journal. Reach him at (408) 299-1821.
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