Dilemma with Poker and Mom

[4Real]

Hi all, frequent lurker first time poster.

I have a problem, I need some advice. I have been playing online poker for about half a year now. The problem is that I am underage. My parents don't know and some of my friends know. I've made a lot of money doing it, and have bought small things for myself.

I will be buying an expensive thing for myself soon, an ipod. My mom knows I don't have enough money in my own bank account for this. I don't want her to know I play poker illegally. So should I just hide it from her? Or should I tell her I sold some stocks and had them transfer it to my bank account? Or other (please specify)? Please reply, help me!!

[Stu Pidasso]

Open up a leomonade stand and luander your poker winnings through that.

Stu

[Clarkmeister]

There have been similar threads in the Psych forum. Do a search for "parents" and you'll find lots of stuff.

[astroglide]

you won a contest

[Dominic]

If you're birthday's coming up, hide it until then and say a friend got it for you. Or, determine if she knows what an iPod is and how much it costs...it really doesn't LOOK expensive and if she'll buy that it only cost, say, $30, you may get away with it.

And, I must say in all seriousness...stop playing poker online until you're 18. It could get you in a LOT of trouble...and I'm not talking about the parental kind.

I know you won't quit, but I just had to say it. /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[jagoff]

Say you bought it on Ebay for $10! Don't forget to erase the midget porn from your PC before mom logs on!

[Cubswin]

[ QUOTE ]
Or should I tell her I sold some stocks and had them transfer it to my bank account?

[/ QUOTE ]

I didnt realize you could trade stocks if your under 18.....

[andyfox]

1) Quit playing poker on-line until you're 18.

2) Don't buy the ipod. Wait until you're either 18 or have the money from non-secret sources.

You haven't been honest with your mom. And now you want to make up a story about where you got the money?

How old are you?

[ThaSaltCracka]

This reply doesn't surprise me /images/graemlins/grin.gif, but he is right.

[ericd]

Thank you. I realize some of the responses were meant to be cute but...

I must be getting old but I thought coming up with schemes to lie to one's mother ended by the time high school began.

[ThaSaltCracka]

[ QUOTE ]
I must be getting old but I thought coming up with schemes to lie to one's mother ended by the time high school began.

[/ QUOTE ] huh? High School is when that flourishes. He just shouldn't be lying to his mom about making money playing poker illegally.

[ericd]

I guess I must be even older than I want to admit. Those years seem to be blending together. But now that I think about I have to agree with you about those high school values.

[ThaSaltCracka]

haha, there you go, we all lied to our parents about things in high school, but sometime about lying about where your getting money from, just doesn't seem right.

[4Real]

Hi, I took the stock account route and told her it was on sale for a really good deal on the internet. She bought it. (You can trade stocks if you r under 18 if ur parent signs too.)

I have a few more questions, appreciate much all the answers so far:

1. What kind of trouble can I get in if I get caught??

2. If I stop should I leave the money in the account or take it out??

3. When I turn 18, how can I play at the poker site again?? Should I e-mail them with the truth and ask for a new account?? Or just play at a less popular site /images/graemlins/frown.gif??

[Blarg]

[ QUOTE ]
I didnt realize you could trade stocks if your under 18.....



[/ QUOTE ]

Sure you can. I asked my dad to open a stock account for me when I was like 12. I was tired of collecting stamps and coins and wanted to be a big businessman!

I saved up my allowance and grandma birthday and christmas money and bought stock in Pan Am and it skyrocketed. Then it went out of business. I think I lost ten bucks.

[Blarg]

Someone involved in the Teapot Dome scandal, I think it was, was asked how he could risk so much getting caught up in such dirty doings. "I seen my chances, and I took 'em," he said.

Kind of like Go West young man in a way. Sometimes a huge opportunity comes up and you have to ask yourself if passing it by just because society disapproves is really in your best interests. That statement needs all kinds of qualifiers, but the point is that it needs qualifiers in the first place. Would you kill someone for a nickel? No. But plenty of people speed on the freeway. When exactly is some kind of a moral stand truly moral, and what are the real consequences.

How old are you? When you get to be 18, just withdraw the money. Or leave it in. Why would the poker site ever have to know or care?

I think the main thing is, can you really keep from spending it or bragging to your friends? Crooks get caught all the time because they just can't keep secrets. Husbands and wives even get themselves caught because the one they trusted most of all spills the beans without thinking, or just in an irresistible bid for attention.

If you can't stop from spending and getting caught would piss your parents off too much, knock it off. If you can control it, it's another matter. You can go through a lot of burgers and movies in life without anyone being the wiser, but you can only pay for so many expensive dates or buy so many iPods before things start to look pretty darn fishy.

Personally, I'd take the gamble on my parents getting pissed off. I don't think there's anything immoral about playing poker, and I think a big part of childhood is an artificial construct. Kids not long ago used to be considered adults at 12 and 13. They still marry in many countries at that age, etc. What's appropriate for kids depends on what you think a kid really is, and on the particular kid. You're the kid, you make the decision. You're the one who has to pay for either the lost opportunity or the getting caught.

As to your three specific questions:

1) Trouble? Parental. Pretty much depends on the parent But most parents expect their kids to do some stupid things, even though they may get hysterical about it. You'd be kind of an unusual kid if you were perfect anyway. Legal? Minors can do an awful lot of flat out illegal things, and not only not get prosecuted but have criminal records expunged when they reach the age of majority. We're talking MURDER and armed robbery here, not silly stuff like playing poker. I find it very hard to believe there would ever be serious consequences. The only thing I can even think of is having your parents be cited for contributing to the delinquency of a minor, which also seems impossibly unlikely to me. Who's going to rat out on them? You?

2) If you stop forever, why wouldn't you take it out? If you're going to not play for months or something, I'd take it out too. Unless there's some difficulty you'd have ever getting money back in the account again.

3) Again, I must be missing something. Why do they care if you turned 18?

One last thing to emphasize: telling your friends about it like you have is the surest way to bring this whole thing crashing down on you even if you do everything else right. Friends get mad at each other. Friends who seem okay turn out to be weirdos, or just get drunk, or get mad at you for trying for the same girl they are, or hitting a baseball farther than they can. School is a volatile time filled with volatile people. If you're not even telling your own family, how smart is telling your friends?

This is what makes me think you might not be able to handle this kind of a secret or responsibility, and this might not be a good thing for you. If you're going to just get caught eventually, you'd better opt out while the opting is good.

Play it cool, fool! A big mouth and flashy iPods and all will kill you if you don't watch out. So will spending huge amounts of money there's no way you could possibly have at the moment on a girl you just have to have, a possibly even more irresistible temptation, especially in hormone-addled youth. If anybody has to know anything, you're doing it wrong.

P.S.: You'll want to spend money even more when you eventually go to college and have the chance to really party -- not to mention buy textbooks. There's a lot to be said for making accumulating a much bigger priority than spending. It's going to spend just as well later -- even better in fact.

[4Real]

I am 17, I make $90/hr playing. I don't think I'm gonna stopjust keep my mouth shut about it and not buy much. I was wondering about starting a new account because if the place found out I wasn't the age I said I was then can't they take away all my money? Especially if they have records of me playing underage?? Or if I won a big tournament!

[Blarg]

Not entering big tournaments would solve part of that problem. You only have a year to stick it out anyway.

When you hit 18, if you're still worried, making a new account might make you feel better and add the last little extra degree of safety I guess, so you might as well.

I don't see any reason why the Poker site would likely try to find out your real age or care, especially after the fact of turning 18, because you make them money every time you play and they're all offshore anyway. They have more incentive to keep you playing than search around looking for ways to steal money from their customers. But anything's possible, sort of. I guess.

Grats on doing so well at 17. I'd be damn proud if my kid was smart enough to do that.

[The Dude]

No way you make $90/ hr... an I-pod would not be a big purchase. Nor would you know so little about how internet poker sites operate if you had enough experience to be that big a winner.

However, since you've already established yourself as an honest and dependable person, I will forget about the above evidence and take your word for it.

[4Real]

Is $90 high? I see all these people making $60,000 like nothing! How much do you make an hour?

Oh Ipod is big for me, before I only bought DVDs with my poker money.

[The Dude]

[Office Space tone] Yeah... umm... [/Office Space tone]

What stake do you play?

[4Real]

/images/graemlins/confused.gif

[The Dude]

What stake do you play?

[GuyOnTilt]

Is $90 high? I see all these people making $60,000 like nothing! How much do you make an hour?

What does any of that have to do with how much YOU make an hour? (And for the record, almost nobody on these forums is able to make $60k like nothing, and the ones who do make it in a couple months have an hourly rate of only twice what you claimed, so unless you're making $30k "like nothing"...) If a $400 purchase is "big" for you, you don't have huge problems hiding your income from your mom, you're not worried about leaving your money in your poker account for a year without touching it, and the primary thing you buy with your winnings are DVD's, I PROMISE you that you aren't making $90/hr.

Btw, my advice is to quit lying to your mom. Not just about poker; quit lying to her period. When you develop trust and learn to have a relationship with her, your life will be made much easier and your home life will be much better. And just so you know, I'm 20 years old, not some 35 year old dad. Also, quit trying to impress people with some dreamy hourly rate. If you really did/do think your hourly rate is that high, start keeping accurate records of every session you log. Hours and net is all you need to know your hourly rate, but learn to be honest WITH YOURSELF, otherwise you're going to have a hard time being honest with anybody else.

The moral of the story : Lying is for nerds.

GoT

[The Dude]

Don't let GoT fool you - he's a nerd too. He may not be a liar, but he's still a nerd.

[4Real]

I use Pokertracker but what you guys are saying sounds like I miscalculated it or something. I go to my stats, then session notes, then look at the true win rate thinger. That's it right? Under $ Won for true win rate it says $87.xx

What are your guys' hourly rates!??!?

[GuyOnTilt]

Don't let GoT fool you

Good luck. I am a savant of deception.

Hey may not be a liar, but he's still a nerd.

But at least I can construct a viable sentence, dipnut.

GoT

[The Dude]

Tell me what stake you're playing at, and I'll tell you if $90/hr is reasonable.

Also, how many total hands do you have in PokerTracker?

[The Dude]

[ QUOTE ]
But at least I can construct a viable sentence, dipnut.

[/ QUOTE ]
I don't get it.

[4Real]

I play no limit on royal vegas with $2-$4 blinds. It's like 10,000 hands.

[GuyOnTilt]

What are your guys' hourly rates!??!?

I won't say my hourly rate for certain, but I'll give you some clues:

1. Both our hourly rates are over $90.
2. The Dude plays 10/20.
3. My hourly rate when I log zero hours is 43% of The Dude's.
4. The Dude earns 1.5 BB/table/hr.
5. My hourly rate when I log the same amount of hours as The Dude is 293% of his.
6. The Dude plays the maximum number of tables with no overlap on a 1600x1200 monitor.

From that you should be able to deduce my hourly rate in my normal ring game. /images/graemlins/grin.gif

GoT

[The Dude]

Log another 90,000 hands, then re-evaluate your hourly earn. I've had losing streaks of over 15,000 hands, and am nowhere near a losing player.

[The Dude]

7. GoT is a nerd.

[The Dude]

[ QUOTE ]
I am GoT. I am a dumbass.

[/ QUOTE ]
Just because you quote it, doesn't mean it's there.

[GuyOnTilt]

Shut the fuck up you piece of shit.

GoT

[4Real]

So you believe me now?





I lied I only make $30/hr playing 1/2 no limit. /images/graemlins/shocked.gif

How come you and GOT fight so much, are you gay lovers??

[The Dude]

No, but I think he secretly wishes we were. He's a sicko.