Poker on NBC Nightly News Tonight

[maryfield48]

[ QUOTE ]
Report about the hotest trend this year -:

Younger poker players - younger than the legal age

More later

[/ QUOTE ]

Dontcha just love when reporters say things like, "Experts estimate up to eight percent of teens who gamble are at risk of developing gambling problems."

WTF are we supposed to learn from that non-statement. What experts? Estimate by what methodology? "up to eight percent" is what, 0.1% to 8%? "at risk"? Meaningless phrase. And what per centage of non-poker playing teens develop gambling problems? And BTW, define "gambling problem".

[MicroBob]

When i dealt BJ at a casino for 8 months we had to go through a really pointless 2-day orientation (in fact, if i wanted to go get my job back I would have to do the same orientation all over again).

Anyway, we were informed that it is estimated that 10% of the American populace has some sort of gambling problem.
thus, if only 8% of poker-playing teens develop a gambling problem later in life it would appear that early poker-playing actually helps INHIBIT the chances of becoming a problem-gambler later on.

Of course, the percentage of players at my BJ tables who I would guess had a decent gambling problem is much higher than that. I'll define gambling-problem as playing with more money than they otherwise should be okay with losing....IOW, putting themselves in a situation where it might be difficult to pay the rent).
When I have players wearing their McDonald's uniforms coming in and dropping more than $200 I suggest that is in 'problem' territory because you sure as hell they aren't making very much dough to begin with.


Anyway, my thoughts were similar to yours. "up to 8%". Hell...if the REAL number is only 3% they can still say "up tp 95%" and still get away with it.

Additionally, there is a chicken-or-egg argument here.
One could just as easily argue that those who have the tendency to become problem-gamblers also had the tendency to gambler earlier in life.
In other words, the early gambling didn't necessarily provoke the person into problem-gambling later....but, rather, someone who was probably going to become a problem-gambler anyway is the type who is going to gambler earlier in life.


The lady who compares teen-gambling to playing with a gun is freaking nuts. She's also the reason why we've had occasional posts on here from decent, recreational players who has family and friends trying to force some sort of 'gambling'problem' intervention to 'save' them from their evil activity.



Thankfully, acceptance of gambling in general and of poker specifically (with the TV coverage) is making the activity far more acceptable to more and more of the general public than it ever has been before.
Poker's portrayal as a game of 'skill' on TV including profiles of MIT math gurus like Chris Ferguson definitely help in that regard. The generic analysis of 'he's got a 60% chance of winning the hand here....what a GREAT play by going all-in there...' etc helps a lot too.

The idea that gambling is the same thing as playing with a gun is thought of as a ridiculous exaggeration by more and more of the general public.

[randomchamp]

Statisics can prove anything, 14% of people know that.
Homer simpson.