I always see friendly reminders plastered on casino walls and in the back pages of gambling sites, saying something to the effect of, “If you have a gambling problem, call this number….”
Honestly, if you have a gambling problem, you’re more likely to play that number in Powerball than call it, but good looking out, BetMGM.
Since the “casino with heart” as imagined by desperate husband, Albert Brooks, in Lost In America, doesn’t exist even in movies, I figured there must be a law that compels all gambling houses to throw this lifeline to their customers, whom they, by design, want to drown.
I did a quick search and, according to AI, there is such a mandate, at least in Nevada, where the owners of said dens of iniquity, or equity, depending on what side of the tables you’re on, must clearly post info about gambling addiction services.
I suppose some desperate souls have dialed the number, but imploring addicts to police themselves isn’t, in my opinion, trying very hard to help.
If casinos wanted to get serious about it, they’d make the signs similar in tone to the Surgeon General’s Warnings on every pack of cigs.
They could say, “Gambling has been found to cause financial ruin and may lead to loss of wife.”
Or, “Strokes of luck are still strokes.”
Or appeal to the risktaker’s sense of humor with, “7 out of 10 Doctors think gambling is a disease, and those are incredible odds that you’d be a sucker not to put some money on.”
But the gaming industry is just doing the bare minimum to comply with the law. They don’t really want to do anything that would inspire you to stop placing bets.
As the late, great Garry Marshall, playing the casino manager in Lost In America, says to Albert Brooks about returning the money that Brooks’ wife, Julie Hagerty, had just lost, “Why would we do that?”
Because, Brooks explains, then you’d be known as “the casino with heart.” There was no chance of that happening. Just like there’s no chance that a casino really wants to help you abstain from gambling.
Who knows, maybe in keeping with that old adage, “You can shear a sheep a thousand times, but you can only skin it once,” the gambling industry cares enough to keep you from totally bottoming out so you can keep coming back for more.
That’s the sort of cold comfort that only a perfectly air-conditioned casino in the middle of the desert can provide.
Las Vegas, NV
It was in just such a perfectly air-conditioned casino in the middle of the desert, The Encore, where I found myself mulling over these depressing facts. Thank God poker isn’t gambling, I reminded myself as I late-regged for the Daily Tournament.
Poker is a lot of things. It’s a game of incomplete information, it’s psychological warfare, it’s a math problem, it’s a mind sport (so decided by the International Mind Sports Association, the IOC of sitting still), and it’s been designated a game of skill by California for decades, with many other states that forbid gambling following suit.
However, whether you call it the element of chance, variance, or blind luck, poker has plenty of gamble in it. It’s just that the better you are, theoretically, the less luck figures into your outcome over time. In the short term, however, you have no control over whether your cards run good, bad, or f-ugly.
What I find interesting is that even though poker players, coaches, and writers universally insist on the differentiation between normal gambling and the element of chance in poker, lately the poker world has been doing everything it can to increase the gamble in our game.
Evidence double board bomb pots. Mystery Bounty Tournaments. The aptly named series, No Gamble, No Future, with their Wheel of Death and, as of this weekend, a trading card tie-in courtesy of Jared Bleznick, about which I strive to remain ignorant.
I guess what I should have reminded myself at the Encore was, “Poker isn’t gambling… yet.”
The buy-in for the tournament I played that day was $240. I made one rebuy of $200 and also added on for an additional $100. These features, essentially extra chances to win the same contest, have in their own way increased the element of gamble in the game.
If you beat someone, they can rise from the dead and devour you like in Sinners, as a result of uttering the magic words, “Rebuy.” I guess it’s fair because you can do the same to them, but you can’t say that doesn’t increase variance.
The event paid 19 players. I got knocked out in 53rd place. My level of skill and run of luck combined to send me packing… off to the sports book for some real gambling.
I had bet the Cubs to beat the Rangers to make it ten wins in a row. In this case, my luck combined with the Cubs’ incredible offensive skill, and we all prevailed.
Of course, the line was -127, so I had to bet 200 bucks just to win 157, but hey, these casinos in the desert aren’t going to air-condition themselves.
And Now for the News…
With the complete exoneration of Doug Polk and The Lodge, the killjoys who tried to turn Texas Hold’em into Texas Scold’em have failed.
The Lodge’s victory in court was also one for the future of poker in Texas, as was the success last week of the first-ever WSOP Circuit event in the state, at TCH Austin.
Have a great week.
