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Poker Has High Appeal For Teens
Published: 2005-12-31
 It takes more than luck to win at Texas hold 'em, Eric Rothman says, which is why the 18-year-old high school senior enjoys putting his poker-playing skills to the test. For classmate Buzzy Adriatico, 17, poker's appeal is "the adrenaline ... of [having] a big hand."
Seven teenage friends gathered at Rothman's Batavia, Ohio, home on a recent Sunday afternoon and plunked down $10 apiece to play the popular poker game. Such scenes have become common, and there are few regulations that prohibit such friendly games.
While poker is a harmless diversion for most teens, experts caution the risks of gambling addiction are being overlooked. Michael R. Stone, executive director of the Kentucky Council on Problem Gambling, says studies have shown nearly 4 percent of teens are pathological, or compulsive, gamblers.
In any given week in this country, about 2.9 million people ages 14-22 are gambling on cards, and more than 80 percent are male, according to a report released this fall by the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania.
The center's recent survey of 900 young people found that almost 42 percent of males say they gamble on cards at least once a month. That's up 20 percent from summer 2004. Rugle and Stone say few parents take potential gambling problems seriously.
Cable channels bring poker tournaments into homes nationwide. Last year, 2.8 percent of cable TV households watched the World Series of Poker finale on ESPN. Watching Texas hold 'em on TV sparked Eric Rothman's interest in the game. His father, Larry Rothman, says teens "know these [TV poker] players like they know baseball players."
Eric asked his parents' permission before he began playing poker a couple of years ago. Last summer, a group of about 15 friends sometimes held games two to three times a week.
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Casinos Betting 2006 Is Year For Table Games
Published: 2005-12-30
 If the third time's the charm, 2006 could be the year West Virginia lawmakers open the doors to poker, blackjack and other table games at four racetrack casinos. The president of Wheeling Island Racetrack and Gaming Center isn't betting on it just yet, but he will wager this: If they don't let the four host counties vote soon, jobs will start to disappear.
Robert D. Marshall Jr. says the state will lose at least $30 million from its tax base when Pennsylvania's 61,000 slot machines come online unless West Virginia's gambling halls can offer something more enticing. Table games, now available in 11 other states, could raise revenue by at least $15 million a year, he says. Without table games, 250 jobs on Wheeling Island could be lost. With them, Marshall says, 350 could be gained. "People in general think this is a new gambling bill.
It's not. We're just adding amenities," he says, standing at the edge of a tropical-themed casino with 2,330 jingling machines and a bar lined with fake palm trees. "We're just asking for more product." A bill that would let Kanawha, Jefferson, Hancock and Ohio counties vote on table games died at the end of the last legislative session, and Gov. Joe Manchin refused to put it on a special session agenda for September. But there's no doubt it will return for the session that starts Jan. 11.
The West Virginia tracks in Charles Town, Chester, Wheeling and Nitro now find themselves faced not only with looming competition from a neighboring state but also from within: Video poker bars have proliferated since they were legalized under the 2001 Limited Video Lottery Act. A recent Associated Press review found that Northern Panhandle parlors had 14 machines for every 1,000 residents last year, nearly three times the state average. Both Wheeling Island and Mountaineer Racetrack & Gaming Resort say the tiny clubs with five and 10 machines are cutting into their bottom lines.
Last month, MTR imposed a hiring freeze that will last through the first quarter of 2006, and President Ted Arneault warned that without table games, "the freeze could turn into a more aggressive form of layoff." That would be more bad news for ailing Hancock County, which had the highest unemployment rate in the state for October at 8.5 percent, and which found out recently that 800 jobs will be eliminated at the Mittal Steel Co. mill in Weirton, W.Va.
"The economy is more primed for this bill than it ever was. People can look ahead and see West Virginia is going to need the revenues we're going to generate," says Arneault, who's been talking about table games since 2002 and got legislation sponsored for the first time in 2004.
"In the Northern Panhandle, especially, we need the jobs and the economic impetus this can provide." Mountaineer could add as many as 400 jobs if it gets table games, he said. Opponents of table games decry what they see as an expansion of gambling and the state's growing reliance on lottery revenue. The tracks generated $371 million for the state last year. Manchin has called for a table games bill but has not taken an active role in pushing one. Though he has said he would sign a bill allowing county referenda, he also wants it linked to further restrictions on video lottery parlors.
"His involvement would help," Arneault says, "but it isn't necessary. Just saying he would sign it is enough." Penn National Gaming Inc., which owns Charles Town Races & Slots, supports a table game bill "as long as the tax rate is reasonable and the legislation is written appropriately," says John Finamore, senior vice president of regional operations. Charles Town is healthy, sitting in the county with one of the state's lowest unemployment rates, and Finamore says existing jobs there don't depend on table games.
But the games could create 500 to 700 new positions. Table games also would lead to a construction boom: Finamore says Penn National would invest as much as $150 million in more hotel space, entertainment venues, food and beverage concessions, and gambling space. Though legislators may be more interested in sustainable jobs than spinoff construction jobs, "those are real numbers," he says. Slot machines have dominated the nation's gambling scene for 20 years, and for several years, some of the 11 states with full-fledged casinos have been removing table games to make room for them.
Eighty percent of the revenues in Las Vegas casinos, for example, come from slots. But Finamore says the growing popularity of televised poker tournaments and the success of table games at Atlantic City's Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa are turning the cycle around. "Ten years ago, when I worked in Las Vegas, poker was a dying business. Casinos were rushing to take poker out," he said. "Ten years later, poker is all the rage. Every time I turn on ESPN, someone is playing poker."
Arneault and Marshall say table games won't stop every gambler from leaving West Virginia, but it could stem the loss by drawing a new kind of customer, a younger, action-driven gambler. Marshall believes most people who object to table games haven't been to the racetracks and don't understand they are entertainment destinations. At Wheeling Island, fountains flow with liquid chocolate, chefs cook pasta to order, and digital touch-screen machines are equipped with Bose sound systems. "When they think 'racinos,"' Marshall says, "they're not thinking this."
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