Tonight, somewhere on the Boston University campus, a group of five to seven students will break the law.
They won’t be robbing the banks in the George Sherman Union. They won’t be trafficking illegal drugs or arms. They won’t vandalize public property or commit larceny – of either the grand or petty persuasion.
They won’t even have to leave their dorms.
This group, and possibly many others like it, will instead break the law sitting around a table. Stacks of chips, varying in height, sit in front of each person. The only movement is the gliding of playing cards across the tabletop. The only sound the click-clack of the chips as they fall into the pot.
Oh, that and the constant flow of trash-talk that seemingly comes with the starter kit you can get with $20 and a trip to the corner store.
Tonight, BU students, and people across the city, will break both university rules and state laws by playing poker.
THE EXPLOSION
The multi-colored chips make an oddly heavy thud as they drop to the felt tabletop. “I bet it all,” the man says, a heavy Russian accent making “bet” sound more like “bit.”
“I call,” the table’s other occupant responds, pushing his own chips into the center of the table before flipping his cards and revealing the winning flush – bringing the popular poker movie Rounders, starring Matt Damon and Edward Norton, to its satisfying ending – for everyone but KGB, the movie’s Russian antagonist, that is.
Since the movie’s 1998 release, the game it depicts, Texas Hold ‘Em poker, has exploded in popularity. In eight years poker has gone from something only our fathers – and degenerate gamblers – were familiar with, to one of the most popular games of chance.
What used to be confined to smoky garages and rec-rooms full of 40-something men downing cheap beer and pushing cheap chips across a folding table is now prime-time, must-see TV – hidden cameras catch every card slid across the green felt, commentators talk strategy and sponsors line up around the block – and there are millions of dollars on the line.
Some, like College of Communication associate professor of advertising John Verret, attribute the increased interest in the game to movies like Rounders and the success of events like the World Series of Poker – a tournament held annually in Las Vegas that in 2005 attracted over 5,600 players (all willing to hand over the $10,000 entry fee) and paid out $7.5 million to the winner.
A representative for Harrah’s Entertainment Inc., which produces the WSOP, declined to comment, citing company policy not to contribute to publications with audiences under 21 – the minimum age to participate in the WSOP.
Verret said the current poker craze, and any craze for that matter, starts simply enough.
“Basically you get a small group of people who happen to be influencers,” he said, “like in high school like there was a group of cool kids who will start to do something and it will spread.”
Verret said most trends are spread first by word of mouth – friends telling each other about the hot new thing – until it reaches a certain point where it is noticed and picked up by a larger medium. Then it really starts to take off.
“In this day and age you have television, and with poker the Travel Channel is the one that got it started and it just took off,” Verret said. “The Travel Channel had never been able to qualify for the Neilsen ratings, because Neilsen has a minimum level it will report, and all of a sudden certain times a week [the Travel Channel’s] numbers were through the roof.
“People started tuning in to these poker shows in droves and people noticed.”
David Chang, a senior in the School of Engineering, said he thought the game’s popularity has increased for a number of reasons, including a cultural affection for gambling or “playing with probability.”
“If you play enough you’ll realize so many banker type of people play because its very similar to their careers,” Chang said in an email. “Also other professions like engineers and doctors play because it’s such a good mind game.
“There was a quote somewhere that said ‘Poker is war in disguise of sport,'” Chang continued, “which is very true. You can just keep going after a guy and pounding on him. He will get so annoyed … because you just keep beating up on him mentally. Of course at times that mental war becomes physical.”
POKER PROFESSIONAL
Mike Ward makes his living from poker, but not as a player.
Ward, poker tournament director at the world’s largest resort casino – southeastern Connecticut’s Foxwoods, which features more than 340,000 square feet of gaming space spread over its sprawling 4.7 million square foot complex – gave an inside look at one of the casino’s most popular games.
Speaking by phone from his Foxwoods office, Ward talked about the casino’s most recent investment – a remodeling job that increased its poker room from 76 to 114 tables.
“I think we’re on an upswing for at least the next five to seven years,” he said. “When you look at the demographic of people playing poker it has changed dramatically from a 40-plus crowd to the mid-20s and up crowd. So you’re going to have more people playing for longer, and you’re going to pick more people up as you go.”
Ward said poker is a big part of casino business, especially at Foxwoods.
“There are typically two ways we make money off the game,” Ward said. “First there is what we call a Time Game, where you pay a certain fee at the top and the bottom of the hour, so twice an hour, to play at that table. Depending on the level of the game you’re playing, how much money is going into the pot, the amount you pay to sit changes. For instance the lowest level we offer is 1-2 no limit, and I believe that costs $5 per half hour, so $10 an hour.
“Second is what is called a Rake Game, where there is no time charge but when the pot reaches a certain level, say $20, we take a dollar, and the same goes for when the pot reaches $40,” he continued. “Basically in a rake game, whoever wins the pot will have paid to sit at the table – and our max rake is $4 per game.”
Ward said poker is attractive to casinos because it offers a low-risk cash-flow source.
“If you think about it, all we’re doing is providing a service to the customer,” he said. “We’re saying, ‘OK, you’re going to sit here, we’re going to deal the cards, you can have a few drinks and it’ll be a safe environment to play,’ and we charge for that.
“We never lose on a poker table,” Ward continued. “But it’s a modest win per table, and if you think about it you have to have lights to light the building, you have to pay the dealer and pay for floor space … so volume is really where it’s at.”
While Ward said he couldn’t reveal figures because Foxwoods is not a publicly traded company, evidence that the casino has plenty of volume is not hard to come by. Ward said Foxwoods offers three poker tournaments a day Monday through Thursday to increase traffic on the tables, but only five total during the weekend because traffic is high enough then to fill the tables with live games.
“Tournaments are usually $100 to enter,” Ward said, “which we divide into two sections. There is an $80 buy-in, which goes to the pot and will be divided among the winners of the tournament, and a $20 entry fee, which goes to the casino.”
Ward said a lot of casino poker – as opposed to live (cash) games – is tournaments, because that is the kind of thing people see on TV.
“Poker has always been popular, it’s just when the big tournaments like the World Series of Poker started being advertised for and broadcast on TV that people started getting into it,” he said. “They would see it on TV and think ‘That looks like fun, you put up a little bit of money and you can win all this money.'”
SIMPLE GAME SIMPLE RESULT
Verret agreed with Ward, saying he thought much of the current interest in poker started with the broadcasting of Texas Hold ‘Em tournaments.
“I think Texas Hold ‘Em is relatively simple, though the strategy is involved it is pretty easy to understand, and they explain it so well that everyone says ‘I could do that,'” he said. “There are no wild cards, and there is an element of risk to it because you can choose to go all in. It’s a very straightforward game, and an easy way to get into the game.
“That was the starting point; then you get celebrities involved and then you have the non-celebrity celebrities, those professional players you see on TV who are now developing into people like those American Idol contestants, where they are developing followings and becoming like celebrities,” Verret continued.
ENG freshman Jonathan Klein, a poker player since high school, said he watches poker on TV once in a while.
“I find it interesting to see what the professionals would do in different situations with different types of hands and sometimes you learn from them and sometimes you simply just question what they must be thinking to make those decisions,” Klein said.
Verret pointed at the new way the Travel Channel presented the game as one of the reasons its popularity has increased.
“It was a completely different way of showing poker,” he said. “Like the secret cameras that show you what cards players have? It’s genius.
“But then again, it’s nothing new – game shows do it all the time,” Verret continued. “It’s just a way to get the audience involved. To let them think they know something the other players don’t.”
BUYING IN
Searching “poker” on any popular internet search engine will instantly return well over a hundred thousand hits. Many of those hits will belong to online poker sites, as the excitement hasn’t been limited to TV and casinos, reaching to the internet as well.
Looking to capitalize on the popularity of the game, many sites, such as 888Holdings PLC’s PacificPoker.com, offer free downloads of their software and allow users to play for free at first – hoping that later on they will enter their credit card information and join in on the pay-to-play fun.
COM sophomore Ray Hidalgo said he doesn’t know what caused poker to suddenly become as popular as it has.
“They call Texas Hold ‘Em the “Cadillac” of poker,” Hidalgo said. “But I wouldn’t be able to tell you why.”
Though Hidalgo said he will watch it on TV “if nothing else is on,” he doesn’t watch it religiously and never plays online.
“Half the fun of poker is being able to talk at a real table and be able to look everyone else in the eye,” he said.
“I got into poker my [sophomore year of high school] when my friends started playing five-card draw with deuces wild one random night,” Hidalgo continued. “Poker then became a habit and just like everybody else, we eventually switched to hold ’em.”
While Klein and Hidalgo both said they often play on campus, despite school rules against it, Chang said he never does.
“I’m aware poker [for money] is illegal on campus at BU, and I have never played on campus,” Chang said. “Frankly I don’t know why people even live on campus, but that’s another story.”
Klein said his normal game happens at West Campus, but that there are probably games all over campus.
“I would have to say that on any given day there is probably a game going on … at Boston University,” he said.
