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In mid-October, Kevin J. H. Paik ’07 decided to call it quits—he’d
tried to limit himself, but still found himself averaging seven to 10
hours a week sitting alone in his room indulging his habit.
It wasn’t alcohol, marijuana, or cocaine that had Paik hooked. His vice was online poker.
“Poker’s a pretty addictive game,” he says. “The fact that online poker is so easy and convenient makes gambling easier.”
When Paik started out, he gambled with $25 buy-in games on
partypoker.com, his site of choice, playing four hands at once. By the
height of his playing, however, Paik was playing the same four hands
but with buy-ins of between $200 and $400—he even “dabbled” in $600 to
$800 buy-ins. The need to increase the size of wagers can be a sign of
a pathological gambling problem, according to researchers.
Paik is somewhat exceptional as an online poker player at
Harvard, first because he was able to quit and second because he never
sunk into the red during his online poker years. Other students have
not been as lucky, and College administrators are starting to worry
that online poker’s increasing popularity might have a detrimental
effect on both the students who play and on those around them.
A SILENT THREAT
The students participating in online gambling do so quietly,
mostly in the silence and privacy of their dorm rooms, according to
Whittier Law School Professor I. Nelson Rose. As a consequence, the
symptoms of a gambling addiction are hard to recognize, making it a
difficult problem for the College to tackle. One House master, for
example, says he did not know that online gambling existed until he was
contacted by The Crimson about the issue.
But Assistant Dean of the College Paul J. McLoughlin II says
that online poker is “as much of a concern for us student affairs
educators as high-risk drinking, mental health, [or] substance abuse.”
Last month, he attended a conference in Washington, D.C. that featured
an entire session on student gambling.
“As this issue becomes more understood among student affairs
professionals and mental health personnel, our resources will attempt
to address them,” he says, citing numerous sessions and conferences
across the country. But given that online gambling is “still a new
issue,” McLoughlin says, “no campus has developed a fix-all solution.”
A $6,000 PUNCH IN THE GUT
Daniel L. Goodkin ’06 says he decided to quit playing
online poker last school year, and his reasons for doing so read like a
full catalogue of the dark side of online poker, a game he calls
“entirely anti-social, emotionally risky, and potentially consuming.”
“The decision [to quit] was the result of several facts,”
Goodkin says. He suffered “some nasty downswings” and realized that
“the short term earnings variance was intolerably high.”
The “deleterious psychological effects of big losses,” he
says, were too intense. “Upwards of $6,000 over a few hours is a gut
punch that makes everything seem pretty grim.”
“But most importantly,” Goodkin adds, he realized “that there were simply better ways to be spending my time.”
‘CASH FALLING INTO MY LAP’
Nevertheless, Goodkin says, online poker was entertaining—and lucrative.
Like Paik, Goodkin knew he could make “like $30 to $40 per hour
with little chance of losing” in low stakes games. But Goodkin became
drawn to the higher buy-in games, where there was simultaneously the
challenge of playing better competitors and “the chance to make serious
money.”
For many players, the money is one of the most important draws
to the online gambling lifestyle. The Harvard poker players interviewed
all say they could make consistently between $15 and $40 an hour
playing four hands at once with low stakes buy-ins.
But “consistency” is a fickle thing in the world of online
poker, and the gambling mentality makes the online game very different
from your typical college job. Big windfalls draw students to higher
stakes games and encourage them to spend their earnings on luxury items
rather than necessities.
“In terms of propensity to consume, it would be far less if I
had a job,” says Paik. “When you win at poker it’s such a windfall that
you’re more driven to spend.”
With his winnings, Paik bought new clothes, new shoes, an
iPod, a 27-inch TV, a DVD player and a snowboard—“all these things I
kind of wanted with this type of cash falling into my lap.”
That type of consumption can make online poker very
attractive. Goodkin says he still has second thoughts about his
decision to quit playing.
“I’m pretty broke now, and wouldn’t mind having a little more spending money,” he says.
But since he gave up this substantial time commitment, he says
his grades have improved, he now runs about 40 miles a week, and he
generally feels happier. Since he quit, Paik has stepped up his
volunteer work—to three times a week for an hour or two each time.
‘AN INTELLECTUAL EXERCISE’?
Paik estimates that at least 10 to 20 percent of Harvard
students have played online poker, and that many of them might play
consistently.
Will P. Deringer ’06 is one of those consistent players. He
says he played about 15 hours a week before his thesis was due but
planned to play about 40 hours a week after he finished his thesis.
Deringer moderates a poker strategy forum on twoplustwo.com, a website
for poker discussion and strategy.
“Poker fascinates me as an intellectual exercise, but it would
certainly be wrong to say the money wasn’t part of the factor,” says
Deringer. “It’s very nice to be able to spend time doing something
you’d do purely as a hobby and to make money doing so.”
Deringer generally plays three to six games simultaneously,
averaging about 200 hands per hour, and says he can make roughly $30 an
hour playing with buy-ins ranging from $100 to $250.
“The amount of money that I can make playing online poker is
several times larger than what I can make during a term-time job,” he
says. “Though there are trade-offs,” he adds, “including the rather
significant psychological cost of having no consistent expectation of
earnings, and having to go to bed some nights after having ‘worked’
$800 poorer.”
Between the attraction of the money and the mental exercise
involved in online poker, Deringer says he has had trouble limiting his
play, despite careful attention.
“Poker has maybe had a marginally negative effect on my
grades, but nothing I’m concerned about. What really concerns me is
that it takes too much time away from my friends and girlfriend,” he
says.
VITAL SIGNS
According to a 2004 article in the Harvard Mental Health
Letter, one of the 10 signs of pathological gambling is “repeated
unsuccessful efforts to cut back or stop.” A second sign of
pathological behavior is “losing or jeopardizing a personal
relationship, job, or career opportunity because of gambling.”
All the students interviewed also had in common another sign
of pathological gambling—a “need to increase the amount of wages.”
Other signs can include “preoccupation with past, present, and future
gambling experiences,” “becoming restless or irritable when trying to
cut back or stop,” “trying to recoup immediately after losing money,”
“lying about gambling,” and “gambling to escape from everyday
problems.” According to the Health Letter, “requesting gifts or loans
to pay gambling debts” and “committing illegal acts to finance
gambling” are also symptoms of addiction.
Pathological gambling involves showing five or more of the signs, according to the Health Letter.
About 1 percent of American adults are pathological gamblers,
another 2 to 3 percent have less serious but still significant
problems, and as many as 15 million are “at risk,” with at least two of
the symptoms described above, according to a National Council on
Problem Gambling study.
Yet three House masters interviewed says they had either never had any complaints or had never dealt with the issue.
“Unfortunately, I’ve never even heard of online poker before
you wrote to me about it,” writes Eliot House Master Lino Pertile in an
e-mail.
Other parts of Harvard are more aware of the issue. Harvard
Medical School’s Division on Addiction established an Institute for
Research on Pathological Gambling and Related Disorders in 2000.
The Health Letter says that treatment for compulsive gambling
resembles that for substance abuse—focusing on therapy. Representatives
from the Bureau of Study Counsel and Harvard’s Mental Health Services
attended a conference to learn more about strategies for addressing
pathological gambling among students, according to McLoughlin.
‘AN EVER-DEEPENING SPIRAL’
But if students don’t actively seek out counseling, there is little the College can do.
The fact remains that students, especially students with a
basic sense of the odds of the game, can make significant sums of money
playing. This winter, for example, Jeremy T. Warshauer ’08 won $10,000
by finishing in the top three in an online tournament sponsored by
truepoker.com. Warshauer said at the time that he would set aside a
couple of hundred dollars from the prize money to gamble with.
Warshauer did not play frequently until he came to Harvard,
where—as he said to The Crimson in January—“you kind of get surrounded
by it.”
But since his big win, Warshauer has decided to cut back on
his play. “At one point last year I played all the time—between
classes, while studying, when I woke up to when I went to bed,” he
says. “Now I’ve gotten busy with school and extracurriculars so I’m not
really playing anymore.”
Warshauer says that he knows “tons” of Harvard students who
play poker online—“almost everybody” that he knows. Warshauer says his
roommate, for example, plays roughly six hours per day.
And Warshauer may not be far off. According to a 2004 study
published on responsiblegambling.org, online gambling is an overlooked
problem on college campuses.
“It is reasonable to expect that the growth of legalized
gambling in the past decade would result in an increase in student
gambling and gambling problems, including students who gamble at a
pathological level,” wrote the study authors. “Pathological gamblers
experience loss of control and multiple negative consequences as they
chase their losses in an ever-deepening spiral. Pathological gambling
in minors has been associated with a variety of negative and addictive
behaviors, including low grades, and high rates of alcohol, tobacco,
and illegal drug use.”
—Staff writer Dan R. Rasmussen can be reached at drasmuss@fas.harvard.edu.
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