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"Cold weather increases, so does gambling"
MetroWest Daily News
By Kathy Uek / News Staff Writer
Thursday, February 3, 2005
Players hold 'em and fold 'em on the World Wide Web -- especially when the temperature dips.
"As cold weather approaches, EmpirePoker.com routinely sees a 5 percent increase in player activity," according to EmpirePoker.com President Ron Burke. "When snow appears on the horizon and people stay indoors and home from work, that number jumps to 27 percent."
In the 1830s, the railroad helped increase poker's popularity. Today there are more than 1,700 online gambling sites available with the click of a mouse.
There's been an explosion of poker fueled by television and the Internet, according to Brad Daugherty, the first million-dollar winner of the World Series of Poker in 1991 when 215 players competed. This year Daugherty expects about 5,000 players to vie for the pot he estimates to be $6 million or $7 million.
Daugherty began playing in 1968 when school friends introduced him to nickel and dime poker. He still remembers feeling like a champ with his score of $3.
With the shuffle on the Internet, players can learn to ace the game, play with others or gamble for the pot. "Gamblers pay with a credit card, or an online payment system such as E-Wallet out of Canada," Burke said.
Nathan Steinberg, a resident of Framingham, with a degree in business and economics, looks at the game differently.
"In some ways, it's mathematical," said the 27-year-old Steinberg, who has netted about $1,000 since he first began playing online nine months ago.
"It's intellectually stimulating to play poker online. It's fun and it has a lot to do with math and science. At the casino, it's hard to find a cheap hold 'em, but you can find it online. There are a lot more options online."
Players log on to EmpirePoker.com for a virtual game with up to 10 players or as few as two. "There is only one winner per hand, unless there is a tie between two people (which is very rare) and in that case both players split the pot," Burke said.
Steinberg, moderate in the way he lives his life, knows gambling has a negative image because some gamblers are addicted.
A member of Gamblers Anonymous knows about addiction and has witnessed the growth of the poker craze on the Web. "A fair percent of the younger people who come in are hooked on playing poker on the Internet, but sports are big as well. Going online is easy. They just sit at a computer."
Before the anonymous member stopped gambling 31 years ago, he bet on the first eight Super Bowls. "I was an equal opportunity gambler. I gambled on everything. Gambling was my drug of choice. It's a very insidious illness."
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