(Long Island, NY) Ever watch ESPN’s coverage of the World Series of Poker? Players like Annie Duke, 2004 Tournament Of Champions winner or 2004 World Series of Poker Champion Greg Raymer are becoming household names in some areas, thanks to a growing popularity of games like Texas Hold ‘em. It’s all on cable TV—the thrills of high stakes gambling.
In light of the growing popularity of both ESPN’s poker broadcasts, and games like Texas Hold ‘em, the recent Farmingdale headlines about illegal gambling raised many eyebrows in the Long Island community. The busts come as a surprise to some who didn’t think illegal gambling was happening so close to home, and an even bigger surprise to ESPN fans who wonder what all the big deal is—after all, don’t they do this on TV all the time?
According to a Newsday.com report, Nassau County police staged a raid on what is being called an “illegal Texas Hold ‘Em game”. Six players, said the Newsday.com story, were arrested and released without bond. Let’s see if we’ve got all the facts right here. Six people were rounded up by the police for playing cards for money in a game that was advertised by word of mouth according to the news story. Six hardened criminals (if they are indeed guilty) who endangered public safety and broke with society by playing a game popularized on cable television.
Obviously, all the facts in this story are NOT in, and we don’t really know whether this illegal game was rigged by professional card sharks, or if the gambling money was stolen out of Sunday school coffers or taken out of the hands of little children standing in line to eat lunch at a public school somewhere in the inner city. Maybe the players were sitting around smoking opium out of pipes made out of endangered elephant tusks, who knows?
What we DO know is this—ten thousand dollars got confiscated in the raid. A small fortune to you and me, just handful gambling money for the players who got raided in Farmingdale. If they can afford to play with those stakes, and the game isn’t rigged, what exactly is the problem here?
Gambling is a major source of trouble for many people, hence the proliferation of organizations such as Gamblers Anonymous (http://www.gamblersanonymous.org/). Gambling can take a hold of some people in the same way that drugs control addicts. Clearly, those people should not be playing card games, just as people with diabetes issues shouldn’t be horking down candy bars and ice cream on a regular basis. At last check, nobody proposed making Ben and Jerry’s a controlled substance in spite of the obvious dangers to the diabetic population at large.
While gambling—legal or not—brings with it a particular set of social concerns and problems (much like the once-banned demon rum), the real issue for Long Islanders should be one of priority. The U.S. Department of Justice reported in 2004 that roughly fifty percent of all high school seniors polled said they could easily obtain amphetamines and cocaine. More than twenty five percent of those surveyed said they could easily obtain crystal meth. (Source page http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/dcf/du.htm)
With statistics such as these, does the Nassau County police department have any business at all devoting resources away from interdicting drug sources in the local community? Six bozos in a warehouse playing cards hardly seems like much of a problem compared to the idea that even as you read this, someone out there is bagging up another batch of coke or pills to sell to a teenager someplace.
Yes, gambling is illegal. So is graft, bribery and misappropriation of taxpayer dollars. Until some more attention is paid to these issues, and especially the availability of drugs to Nassau County teens, perhaps the six bozos should be left to play their Texas Hold ‘Em games in peace.
After all, they were only imitating what they saw on TV, anyway.
