Inside Princeton's gambling subculture

Talking about gambling with an avid Princeton player can be a confusing experience: The student's nonchalant demeanor becomes suddenly animated, with fervent enthusiasm and cryptic lingo. The complete novice, like me, is immediately lost among talk of "rockets," "bitches" and "savannahs," "limit" versus "no limit" and "hold'em." Atlantic City is, of course, "AC" and poker, as opposed to blackjack or roulette, is a skill game where the best players always win in the long run.

Gambling takes many forms on campus: Whereas only a few students bet on sports or take trips to Atlantic City regularly, online gambling is on the rise and almost every eating club and residential college has a regular poker game.

"A few poker rings exist where daily games going on for hours is a standard occurrence," said a junior who agreed to speak on condition of anonymity. "As is inevitable with such games, people soon need to bet more and more to feel satisfied, and the stakes have steadily risen from people buying in for $10 to people losing $300 and $400 in a single game."

This student, who no longer gambles because he is in "big debt," said, "Those kind of games are rare now, as the few who played those stakes are opting for Atlantic City and Internet gambling."

Another junior recalled a "legendary" game in Forbes last year in which players regularly lost upwards of $500.

"The record for a single night in this game was made by one of my friends who took down $1200 in one night," he said.

Most students who have gambled for money don't want their names mentioned because the practice can be addictive and, in some cases, illegal.

The eating clubs sometimes are home to poker games and other forms of gambling.

Tower Club recently agreed to fight real gambling within its walls.

After a meeting with Hilary Herbold, associate dean of undergraduate students, on Monday, Tower changed its policy about poker and gambling in the club, Tower Club President Eric Czervionke '05 said.

"We are no longer allowing poker games to be held that involve exchanges of money, as we feel it is in the best interest of the members and club as a whole," he said in an email.

That said, gambling easily takes over the lives of many players.

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"I've heard of games going all night until the morning when members would find the people still playing in the dining room at breakfast," Scott Daubin '05 said.

One junior, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the most obsessed players "read books on poker, play poker online all the time and talk about it endlessly."

He continued: "They play for very high stakes. . . . They are extremely good though — one player I know has easily cleared $10,000 on the year, and another has cleared almost $5000.

"They don't gamble; they grind it out. Their goal is to win one big pot an hour; they get their chips in when they have the best of it, and protect them when they don't."

Students seeking high stakes games who don't want to make the drive to Atlantic City are also increasingly using the Internet.

"This is true for both poker and luck games, like blackjack and roulette, and where I believe gambling is spreading the fastest right now," one student said. "One kid goes online and makes $5000 by just clicking. His friends get excited and open accounts as well. The vast majority of sites are fair and do send money quite quickly, and as more and more people gain confidence that the Internet is safe to play, more and more people are making credit card and checking account deposits to play."

"There is a certain student at Princeton who won $25,000 in a single sitting on online blackjack," one junior said. "This person proceeded to lose back the $25,000 and $30,000 of his own."

Although the number of people in New Jersey who gamble online has more than doubled since 1999, according to figures compiled by the Council on Compulsive Gambling of New Jersey, online gambling is illegal in this state.

"If I learned that a student was gambling on the Internet, he or she would face disciplinary action, and I, or a residential college dean, would also work with the student to determine, through a counseling evaluation, whether he or she needed treatment for compulsive gambling," Herbold said.

"Although there is nothing explicitly written about gambling in the Rights, Rules and Respon-sibilies handbook, students are supposed to obey all local and state laws," she said.

Often the University becomes aware of a student's gambling addiction after "a parent, friend or roommate becomes concerned and decides to intervene," Herbold said. "Sometimes the student's grades will drop, or they will become involved in secondary illegal activities, like theft, to support their gambling addiction."

Yet gambling remains popular, and most see the occasional poker game as an innocent activity and an opportunity to meet other students.

"Half the time I sit down at the table without knowing everyone," Daubin, who plays for fun, said.

Daubin, who tried to form a poker club last year, has submitted a proposal to the Alcohol Initiative for a poker tournament that would be held at Charter Club on March 27. One hundred sixty students would be admitted on a first come, first serve basis, and prizes would be awarded to the top players, including a $500 American Express gift certificate.