Law banning online gambling takes toll on OU students

By Katherine Bercik, Copy Editor

May 20, 2007 | 12:09 a.m.

Four tables, four dealers, 16 competitors. While the sounds of shoes squeaking against basketball courts echoed throughout Ping Center on May 1, a much more calm air surrounded the Ping Center Lounge, where the Intramural Poker Tournament took place.

Poker has seen a boom in popularity in both the United States and abroad since ESPN began airing poker tournaments on television and with movies such as "Rounders," "Ocean’s Eleven" and "Casino Royale" sweeping the box office. But what is it about poker that makes it so popular?

Writer and literary critic Al Alvarez, who writes about his gambling and card-playing experiences in his latest book "Risky Business," could not have described poker’s appeal in America any better when he compared the card game to the "American Dream," or, in other words, the idea of getting rich fast.

Although poker carries the reputation of being intense and mind-boggling, the atmosphere of the intramural tournament was quite the opposite. This is most likely because money wasn't involved. Brandon Thompson, coordinator for intramural sports, said the tournament was widely popular when it first started, but it has seen a decline in participation because no money is involved. When asked, many of the tournament participants said they were simply looking for something to do.

Participant Travis Funk, an OU graduate and Ping staff member, said he plays poker just for fun. "When you throw money into it, you lose friends faster than making them," he said. "For some people, [the appeal] is the money. Personally, I just enjoy card games. For me, [the tournament] is just entertainment."

However, there are many poker players who don't share Funk's relaxed attitude and aren't simply looking for something to do. There are enough serious gamblers who have gambling addictions that have influenced the federal government to try to limit the amount of gambling that occurs in the United States. Just last year, the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act was passed, causing many online gambling sites to abruptly stop their services for American consumers.

This piece of legislation has been met with great opposition from both business owners and customers alike. Many people, including OU senior Ricky Ziebarth, feel that the act is an attack on people’s personal freedoms to gamble online.

An informal forum

Ziebarth and his friends — seniors Ryan Lehuta, Issac Mabe and David Patrick — took a moment of their day to sit and chat about their experiences of playing and gambling with online poker before the act was passed.

Ziebarth and his friends have been playing poker together since their freshman year at OU while they were living in the same dorm. It wasn't until they moved to different locations that they turned to online poker. They've been playing ever since, or at least until the passage of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act last year.

The seniors all seemed very disgruntled at this, especially Ziebarth. Once the act was passed, online bank accounts that had been storing online gamblers' money were frozen, freezing the money inside them as well. After the act was passed, many gamblers, including Ziebarth, were unable to gain access to their winnings.

Although Ziebarth called online poker "a double-sided sword," — meaning that while it was fun, it was also addicting — he still maintained that gambling should be a personal choice.

On the other hand, Ziebarth's mother, Paula, who was visiting for Moms Weekend, seemed rather relieved that her son couldn't gamble as often as before. "From a parent's perspective, I was worried when he was winning, and I was worried when he was losing," she said, “When he was winning, he would be more tempted to keep playing, and when he was losing, he risked losing his shirt."

While the seniors debated other aspects of the card game, such as whether it should be considered a sport, everyone in the room seemed to agree that playing online poker was addicting, especially with its great accessibility of being online.

While the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act affected many online gamblers nationwide, Speakeasy wanted to get an idea of how much gambling and online poker playing actually takes place here at OU.

Student responses

In a survey of 93 students (47 women and 46 men) with respondents coming from Biddle and Lincoln Halls on East Green, Crawford Hall on South Green, Bromley Hall on West Green, and from Mill Street, students were asked to fill out a questionnaire asking whether they ever played online poker for money and whether they ever gambled on sports other than the Super Bowl and March Madness.

According to the results, only nine out of the 47 women (19 percent) and 27 out of the 46 men (58.7 percent) surveyed stated that they had played online poker, but 55.5 percent of each gender group also stated the online playing didn't involve money.

When asked whether they had ever gambled on sports other than March Madness or the Super Bowl, only 10.6 percent of the women surveyed said they had. The survey showed that men gamble a lot more than women do, with 41.3 percent of the men stating that they gambled on other sports besides March Madness and the Super Bowl.

Ziebarth said he didn't know any women who gambled, and at the Intramural Tournament at Ping, there was only one female participant. "I think men are more likely to take risks," Ziebarth said.

While it may seem to remain a masculine recreation, sports gambling and poker's dynamics are changing with new technology and government policies.