Those old staples - sex, drugs and rock'n'roll - just aren't getting the juices of America's youth flowing like they used to.
Not when there's the chance to sit expressionless at a poker table, wearing dark sunglasses and a baseball cap pulled down over your eyes, for 12 hours at a time.
It was not long ago that poker was played in dingy cellars, the near-exclusive domain of men in green visors who chewed on cheap cigars and had cartoonish names such as Joey Bagels, Billy Mops, Tony Plugs (he used to be Tony Toupee) and Mickey Chips.
But now, fuelled by the explosive growth in television ratings for professional tournaments and a proliferation of online casinos, poker has become the drug of choice for up to 80 million Americans of all ages and, lately, genders.
advertisement
Party Poker
The biggest online poker room with thousands of players.
Choose one of the following games:
Texas Holdem Poker, Omaha Poker, Omaha Hi,
Seven Card Stud, Stud 8 or Better.
Receive a 20% bonus of your first deposit up to a $100!!!
Party Poker
"Poker is all the rage," says Phil Gordon, a player who commentates on one of four major poker shows on US television.
"Television helped demystify it and bring a lot of new players to the game. They see how it's done on TV and envision themselves playing."
Retailers are expecting huge sales this Christmas for all things poker-related, from custom-made chips to upscale tables, while in casinos across the country, blackjack tables are being rapidly converted to accommodate the poker craze.
Las Vegas reports that poker revenue jumped this year by up to 33 per cent, while traditional moneyspinners such as slots and blackjack barely rose. At racecourses around the US, card table revenues are outpacing wagers placed on the track.
"It really is a craze," says Hollywood actor Jon Favreau. "I play online a lot. Unfortunately.
"Ben Affleck kept trying to push it on me and even tried to open an account for me. I ended up doing it on my own, and don't ask me if they send you money if you win because I wouldn't know."
Neither would the parents of a New Jersey primary school boy who were called in by his principal after their son lost a cool $US300 ($420) playing poker.
That, of course, is the flip side to the improbable story of Chris Moneymaker - no, not a nom de guerre - the Tennessee accountant who last year won the World Series of Poker and its $US2.5 million first prize.
Moneymaker, now a fully fledged celebrity who has given up his job to play poker professionally, started his ascension by spending $US40 to enter an online tournament.
He won a $US10,000 entry fee into the world series and the rest is a Las Vegas wet dream.
"That's the rags-to-riches story, the American Dream," says Stanley Sludikoff, who publishes Poker Player, a newspaper devoted to the game.
Across the US, millions are lining up to play the form of the game made famous by the TV shows such as Texas Hold 'Em.
The game is relatively simple: each player is dealt two cards face down and then shares five community cards. Three of the community cards are flopped at once, followed by the next and, ultimately, the crucial final card, known as The River. Betting occurs at each stage and the object is to make the best five-card hand.
The other main variation in this style of a genre that originated on Mississippi riverboats in the 19th century is that it is a tournament, not a my-bank's-bigger-than-yours game. Players pay only an entry fee - small in friendly games, tens of thousands in the professional ranks. They are then assigned chips and have the goal of bankrupting every other player in order to claim the first prize, which is a percentage of the entry fees.
What has everyone so emboldened is that they have watched on TV for so long they're convinced that if they can count to 52 they can become the next Moneymaker. And that includes the young, who aren't content to think of poker as a spectator sport.
"People our age really like to gamble," says university student David Doolittle. Everybody wants to push the envelope. Andy Orsmby, a 24-year-old who graduated recently from university and was working as a mortgage broker, has given up his career in the hope of becoming as famous as Doyle Brunson, or Amarillo Slim Preston or Johnny Chan.
"I win enough to make a living and I'm looking for a sponsor," he told a Florida newspaper.
Not everyone thinks it a foolish sentiment. "I think poker has really captured the imagination of our youth today," says Chris "Jesus" Ferguson, the son of a university professor who won the 2000 World Series of Poker.
"And what you want to do is use that to our advantage. We can use poker to teach kids about critical reasoning and mathematics and probability."
Of course, the probability of critical reasoning when a kid sees more dollars than he can count before his eyes is, well, problematic.
It is true trends come and go, but don't look for this one to subside any time soon, not considering there are thousands of players willing to pony up the $US10,000 entry fee into the world series - or one of its competing tours - which could set up a first prize in the tens of millions.
"There's no immediate ceiling," says Sludikoff. "I don't think we're anywhere near peaking."
Source: Robert Lusetich, The Australian
