Poker experts are getting younger and younger. It used to be a man’s game that people didn’t expect to get mastered until you were in your thirties. Times are changing, though, primarily because of the Internet. Though in Las Vegas you have to be 21 to enter a casino, as is the case in Atlantic City and many casinos worldwide, players are starting so young that they are becoming experts at online poker well before they can even set foot inside a casino on the Vegas Strip.
It is a trend that has become so noticeable that it even caught the attention of ABC News. Last year, Joe Cada became the youngest player ever to win the World Series of Poker, earning the bracelet at the age of 22. So how did he manage to get so good at poker only a year after being allowed to enter a casino? At most online casinos, you only need to be 18. Cada says that he was able to play more than 2,000 hands per day at online poker rooms.
The ABC article cites a study by the Institute for Research and Gambling Disorders that estimates that over 70% of Americans between the ages of 14 and 19 have gambled online in the last year. Seventy percent? Is it just me or does that number seem impossibly high? I’m not sure if 70% of Americans that age have eaten ice cream in the last year! I’m not sure if 70% of Americans that age have heard a Lady Gaga song on the radio.
Of course, this estimate is coming from an institute that wants to make it look like there is a gambling problem in the country, so I wouldn’t take their statistics seriously. Whatever the real number is, though, teens have more access to the game of poker than ever before.
The article also talks about Blaine Brount, a 19-year-old student at the University of Illinois who spends his summer playing online poker as a “second job.” According to Brount, he’s not playing poker to see what happens, he is “trying to make a profit.” He uses money made from online poker to pay his bills and says that “if you’re smart about it and manage your money well, it absolutely can be a real job.”
I don’t recommend players look at online poker as a career or a way to pay the bills. Like professional sports, most simply aren’t good enough. No matter how much you practice in the batting cage, you probably won’t ever make it onto a Major League Baseball roster. Such is the case with poker. Certainly there are professional poker players and some people – including Cada – are good enough to do that for a living, but most aren’t.
However, this story does make one important thing very clear: Poker is a game of skill. You don’t hear about professional slots players or professional roulette players. That’s because they are games of chance that no one can do well enough to be profitable. With poker, though there is some chance involved, they are games primarily of skill and with enough skill, profits can certainly be made. Does that mean we should all encourage our teenage children to play online poker? Maybe not, but we should certainly remove the stigma that poker has in our society.
