cbc.ca article: Poker in Schools

Paul3221

http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2005/05/10/students-poker050510.html

if anyone's interested.  Saw this on the web this morning.

Paul

WaterLooser

Interesting article. I don't think the principal took a hard enough stance however. These kids are gambling, for real money, during school hours, on school property. I know you get away with a lot in highschool (which is in fact where I fell in love with poker), but these kids are doing it out in the open for $$. Kids lack the intelligence to know when to quit. All you need is a kid who also likes to watch the Sopranos on TV and is owed a lot of money to have things escalate to a "situation".

tpfelt

Suspension is not a hard enough stance? I really don't think there is a harder stance that can be taken without it being unreasonable. It becomes even worse when kids are able to take markers for money they don't have. Even still, it isn't hard to imagine a kid stealing $20 from their mom's purse just to be able to get into the game.

AAAsWILD

Well, i must admit that as poker popularity increased, so has it with adolescence AND young children.
this article should be of no surprise, just another reminder that we got to keep a closer eye on the kids...make sure they realize you can have fun with a card game and not have to pull out the wallet (even if it's in their face, just like anything else with such monstrous prize pools that they probably watch with just as much anticipation of sitting at the final tables as majority of we do). I do speak with experience, watching my grade 11 brother and his friends come home from school and play for 'a few bucks here and there' every so often...I can only imagine when else they're playing, and for how much.

AAAsWILD

Unknown

I do speak with experience, watching my grade 11 brother and his friends come home from school and play for 'a few bucks here and there' every so often...I can only imagine when else they're playing, and for how much.

If I were you, I'd do what most older brothers would do: clean them out.

sinc

all_aces wrote:

I do speak with experience, watching my grade 11 brother and his friends come home from school and play for 'a few bucks here and there' every so often...I can only imagine when else they're playing, and for how much.

If I were you, I'd do what most older brothers would do: clean them out.

No friggin kidding, what kind of older brother are you?!?!?

AAAsWILD

lol,
trust me, moms and pops got it under control (monies, etc.), and i do more than my share of familial guidance, which by the way i enjoy since he is my bro!
all i'm saying is guide them to the right path, then if they decide to wander, you just got to get them back on course.
oh, and if anyone is going to try and tell me that (assuming you weren't) playing hold'em during lunch breaks at school, that if the popularity was there during your era you wouldn't have...c'mon...maybe those of you who have would like to share how thing have/haven't changed, and whether or not talk of suspension/punishment ever came into play?

Yorkpoker

We played Euchre for money in high school (sometimes during class at the back of the room) - $2.00 a point plus another $2 per euchre. I bought a LOT of pizza.

I suppose that's the same thing.

im a clown

When I was in high school they just started with pro-line. From what I remember everyone was playing it and alot of guys I knew had bookies. It will always be something. I think they will turn out okay.

boxcard

As a teacher, I can comment that the boom of poker has caught the attention of MANY students. Students will occasionally play cards in my class after they have completed an assignment. Hold'em has been played during these times, but thankfully NOT for money. I made sure very early that my students were familiar with my background. I am a math teacher who used to work in the gaming industry. I am very familiar with most forms of gambling.
I have seen lives destroyed by gambling. Many more than have been improved by it. I am not afraid to share with my students some of these stories when it is appropriate. I try to explain the risks involved. I try not to preach, but rather to educate. Life is about choices. I try to use my experiences to help them understand. I do not promote gambling. I will use real life gambling situations to prove my point when discussing concepts involving probability. The focus is usually concluded with them making their own value judgement about gambling.
Gambling has been an issue in schools for a very long time. Depending on the school, different forms take place. Sports betting, cards, dice, even dares. When I was in high school, I was a bookie. I took in about $250/week on football. I took bets from students and teachers. I quit when my mom found my book and threatened to call the cops. She would have done it, too.
As far as punishment is concerned, schools use suspension as a last resort, typically speaking. Schools are a place of learning for kids. They do not learn the curriculum if they are not in the classroom. Counselling services are more likely to be involved in situations like these. Hopefully, they will be effective.
Eliminating gambling in schools would be a wonderful thing to have happen, but don't bet on it.

Thief

boxcard wrote:

I am a math teacher who used to work in the gaming industry. I am very familiar with most forms of gambling.
I have seen lives destroyed by gambling. Many more than have been improved by it. I am not afraid to share with my students some of these stories when it is appropriate. I try to explain the risks involved.

So then you feel poker is a game of skill or just another form of gambling?

boxcard

I think that poker is a game of skill with an element of "chance" included. This element of chance, also referred to as "luck" in some circles, is what qualifies poker as gambling. Just like blackjack players can improve their probability of winning by counting cards, shuffle tracking, etc., poker players can improve their probabilities of winning by learning concepts such as pot odds, implied odds, tells, etc. When I talk to students, or anyone for that matter, I tell them that if they want to do well at anything, they need to educate themselves on the subject. I believe this holds true for anything in life.

Thief

So you think poker has th same amount of chance as blackjack? Sometimes I think it does....

boxcard

I don't think that poker has the same "amount" of chance as blackjack. Allow me to provide another example. A bingo player cannot adjust his odds of winning using skill. Blackjack and poker players can. The amount of influence the player has on his/her odds in these games can be attributed to the knowledge, and application of that knowledge to the game. The more knowledge and effort applied, the better the situation for the player, in the long run. Luck will still be an influence on players, but over the long run good luck and bad luck should tend toward leveling out. This leaves skill to be the determining factor, however the element of luck cannot be ignored. This is what makes it gambling, even though it most definately is a game of skill.

ScottyZ

I think an interesting point in terms of the semantics is that the word "gambling" has nothing to do with whether or not the underlying event is one of pure skill (like a chess match where the opponents have an equal number of games as white), pure luck (like a fair coin toss), or something in between (like poker).

From [url]www.m-w.com:[/url]

gamble

1 a : to play a game for money or property b : to bet on an uncertain outcome
2 : to stake something on a contingency : take a chance

The language here even suggests that at least some luck is involved, however, it still seems to me that (at least according to this definition) betting on a chess match would be gambling too. In fact, with a broader than usual definition of the word "game" in mind, you might think that Bill Gates is one of the most prolific (and most successful) gamblers in recent history.

So, according to the M-W defintion, this question

So then you feel poker is a game of skill or just another form of gambling?

doesn't seem to be well-formed. That is, gambling and games of skill are not mutually exclusive.

Also interesting is that the Criminal Code takes a different approach:

"game" means a game of chance or mixed chance and skill; (Criminal Code, Sec. 197 (1))

This definition seems to exclude the games of pure skill from Canadian gaming law.

With these definitions (and ignoring the fact that I am totally confused by someone defining the word 'game' by using the word 'game'), I'd say that poker is:

1. gambling (if you are playing for money or property)
2. a "game" under the Criminal Code (since it is a game of mixed chance and skill)

ScottyZ

screenman

Card toss: closest to the wall keeps the cards
Marbles: Winner takes the marbles
Nickel toss: closest to the wall keeps the nickels
All pre high school
Then came girls and that was enough “gaming”
University for us in Thunder Bay was "7 – 27" for quarters.
Put two people together and they will try some combination of skill and luck. That will continue until Star Wars is a history lesson. The point of the article in my opinion is sheep’s clothing for the teachers work to rule. Let’s put the spotlight on the kids and take the heat off of us.

AAAsWILD

Another interesting article:

http://www.pokernewsnow.com/news.php?readmore=186

cheers!

AAAsWILD

another...

http://www.pokernewsnow.com/news.php?readmore=250

zero

I just finished highschool, and in the last month I almost got suspended for playing at lunch. I only got a detention, but it was definately overkill. The VP was acting like he just found a bag of weed in my locker or that I started a fight. We were only playing for quarters... an average pot was probably less than $5.

Tilter

WOW Those kids are smart. IF I played poker when I was in high school, who knows how far my game would have come. 2 years in I feel my game is getting better, but if it were 6 years in...i'd be an ERIK123 Prodigy

ralphthemouse

i dont mean to hijack this thread so ill try to make it related to the original question:

what do you guys think about poker vs. the stock market? why is it that one has such a negative connotation and the other a wildly positive one? are incidents like gambling in schools (and poker popularity in general) related in anyway to the super-fast-money craze/obsession in our globalized world (real estate, stocks, internet, etc...)?

i talked to my cousin whos a student of economics and he argued that in poker someone has to lose, but not in the stock market. but im not entirely convinced