One of the most frequent things I hear in defense of the game of poker is that “it isn’t gambling.” That is even the legal defense in many cases where someone was arrested due to an illegal poker game. They contend that only gambling is illegal, and since poker is a game of skill, it’s okay.

Before I go any farther, I will say something that should go without saying: I like poker. I support poker. I support online gambling of all sorts being legalized everywhere that it is currently banned. I wouldn’t write for Gambling Review if I was anti-poker. However, just because I support poker doesn’t mean I’m willing to perpetuate the myth that it is not gambling. It is.

Gamble (verb):

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 above definition was provided by Merriam-Webster. The game of poker is a game of skill, unlike slots. Players can use bluffing and strategy to increase their chances of winning, but it’s still a chance. Just because you have skill doesn’t mean you will win. After all, your opponents probably have skill as well. Also, though you decide what to do with your hands, you have no control over what cards you draw. Your cards are determined by random chance. You can still win with bad cards by bluffing, but you are more likely to win with good cards, which means that chance affects your odds.

You don’t even need to take it that far to prove that poker is gambling, though. Just look at the above definition. Poker is a game that you play for money. When you place your wagers, you are betting on an uncertain outcome, because anyone at that table could win. You are also staking your money on a contingency, which is a future event that is possible but cannot be predicted with certainty.

Princeton University’s dictionary, WordNet, defines gamble as to “take a risk in the hope of a favorable outcome.” Any time you play poker for real money you are taking a risk – because your opponents may be more skilled or may be dealt better cards – in the hopes of a positive outcome: winning money.

I can go on and get definitions from a hundred other sources and the result will still be the same: poker is gambling. Nowhere in those definitions does it say “unless the game requires skill.” You could certainly argue that the skill element makes poker less of a gamble than slots, and I would agree, but that’s not the point.

Playing poker for money is gambling. There’s nothing wrong with that. When poker players try to legitimize their game by distancing themselves from “gambling games,” they are in effect calling other gambling games illegitimate. By trying to remove the stigma from poker, they are placing more of a stigma on craps, roulette and blackjack. All casino games involve gambling and that includes poker. The sooner we all admit to that, the sooner we can all agree that it’s okay to gamble.

We’re hearing more and more stories of men entering and winning women’s poker tournaments. At first, it was a novelty, but it’s gotten to the point that Gambling Review needs to address the issue. Men, stop entering the women’s tournaments. After outcry, one male player even said that he wouldn’t have entered the women’s tournament if he had known he wasn’t wanted. Gee, maybe the word “women” in the title should have been a clue. Men don’t try to play in the LPGA or the WNBA, so there’s no reason why they should enter women’s poker tournaments. Let the women have them. There are plenty of other tournaments out there.

Some have said that these events prove that men are superior poker players to women. I doubt it. I think that we simply never hear about the men who enter the women’s tournaments and don’t win. There is no physical advantage that can be gained in poker, the game is a combination of strategy and luck. There is no reason that women can’t strategize as well as men, unless people are suggesting that women aren’t as intelligent.

Some are also saying that the women’s tournaments are sexist and the men are right to join them, sort of like Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier in baseball. However, I don’t think any man in his right mind should care if women want to have a poker tournament of their own. After all, you can’t be a waitress at Hooters or a contestant in the Miss America pageant, either. While the tournaments can’t legally bar men from joining, common decency says for men to stay out. The other side of the argument is that women’s poker tournaments are sexist toward women. This depends on the reason for the tournament. If it is to give women a chance to win because it’s thought that they can’t compete with them men, then yes, the tournament is sexist and women need to realize that there is nothing preventing them from being as good at poker as the men. However, if the purpose is simply to give women a chance to get together and have fun playing poker, kind of as a ladies’ night, then that’s fine. Men have had poker night as a way of bonding forever. Why can’t the women do it, too? Not all women like to bond over pottery class, yoga or scrapbooking, you know. And some that do also like to play poker.

What it all comes down to is this: Men wouldn’t want women invading their men’s poker nights, so don’t invade their ladies’ tournaments.

It’s not often that I take time out of my day to comment on fashion trends. Though I consider myself somewhat fashionable, I like to leave that commentary to the professional critics, who like to call outfits “sexy and fun,” “avant-garde,” and either “contemporary” or “throwback,” depending on if it’s something new or recycled. There is one fashion trend that really bothers me, though. Well, two (the other is the popped collar – frat boys, please stop).

It’s sunglasses. I want to make this clear to everyone: Unless you’re a blind pianist, wearing sunglasses indoors is never cool. In fact, you look like an idiot. Yes, that includes you, Bono. I’ve seen way too many people in poker tournaments lately wearing shades. Unless the tournament is outdoors – which would be pretty cool, by the way – then the above rule applies to wearing sunglasses when participating in a poker tournament.

Not only do you look like a fool, which may be your intention, but some people may think you have an unfair advantage. After all, one of the things that makes poker a skill, rather than a game of sheer chance, is that players can read the reactions of others as they play out a hand and try to determine, based on that, whether or not they have good cards. Facial expressions, for those who don’t have a good poker face, are a common tell, and hiding behind a pair of sunglasses can mask that tell. Of course, everyone wants to give themselves an edge over the competition, but I’m against anyone taking any skill out of the game, no matter how minor it may be. I’ve heard many people say that serious players don’t wear sunglasses; it’s just some yahoos playing in the tournaments. Some major tournaments have been won by fools in sunglasses, though, and the more it happens, the more it encourages people to look like an idiot.

I’m not the only one who feels this way. If you’re wearing sunglasses, there’s a good chance the other people playing with you don’t like it. At best, they think you’re a moron and aren’t too worried about you. At worst, they think you have an advantage. In any case, television producers aren’t too fond of it, either. Nowadays, there are a lot of poker tournaments put on TV. Nothing takes away from the drama of a poker tournament like covering up the part of you that shows the most expression: your eyes. In fact, the producer of a major televised poker tournament once said that if everyone at the final table was wearing glasses, he would give them an ultimatum: Either take off your glasses or we’re not having the game.

I’m not going to tell people what to do. If you would rather look like a fool and hide behind sunglasses because you’re not confident enough in your ability to play poker like the big boys, exposed face and all, then go ahead.  But like the popped collar, I will cringe every time I see it.

If you are a loyal Gambling Review reader, then you probably know that both Ricky Bauer and I have a generally negative view about television shows about poker. We just don’t feel that poker makes for interesting television. It seems that there are quite a few people who disagree, though, as evidenced by the number of TV shows out there dedicated to gambling. Well, there is a new one.

In Australia, there is a new show called The Poker Star. The show, appropriately enough, is hosted by Australia’s biggest poker star, Joe Hachem, who was the 2005 World Series of Poker champion. In the show, Hachem is searching for the next big thing, the new poker star to act as the image and the ambassador for poker in the Outback.

A group of contestants live together in one house, kind of like Big Brother, and have to complete a series of challenges relating to poker. Each of these contestants need to prove to Hachem that not only are they good poker players, but display the necessary qualities for a role model and a leader for Australian poker.

The Australian TV show can be viewed by poker fans online, so even if you live in Bolivia and want to watch Hachem and company pick the new face of Australian poker, you’re in luck. Personally, I won’t be watching, but if you want to, no one here will judge you. Well, Ricky might. I don’t want to speak for him.

Lady Gaga has had quite a year in the world of gambling industry whether she knows it or not.  From her smash hit PokerFace drawing much attention to the game to the endless betting on her boy/girl parts, the news just keeps on coming.  And even though the song’s popularity has faded, yet another poker event has extended an open invitation to platinum selling recording artist Lady Gaga.  Ladbrokes is holding the Ladbrokes Irish Poker Festival next week in Kilarney and has asked the singer of the chart-topping hit PokerFace to make an appearance.

The Irish Poker Festival takes place during a break in Lady Gaga’s tour.  Gaga is currently touring the world with rapper/narcissist/crazy man Kanye West, but will have a break in her tour when the festival commences.  The invitation has been extended for Lady Gaga to perform for the festival’s main event which begins on October 2.

“It would be great if she could come and we’ll even make room for Kanye,” said Kate McLennan, head of poker at Ladbrokes,  “The question everyone wants to know is if Lady Gaga can make sweet music on the green baize.”

While Lady Gaga has yet to respond, the festival can confirm that Irish boyband star Shane Lynch of Boyzone is set to perform.  So if Lady Gaga can’t make it, they still have some entertainment which is good.

I still wonder if Lady Gaga has any real interest in poker at all.  I also wonder if the people who keep inviting her to poker tournaments realize that Lady Gaga is, in fact, NOT singing about “poker” in PokerFace.  Instead, the song refers to sexual attraction while dancing with a gentleman in a club and uses the term “poker face” as a poignant metaphor to describe the ambiguity of her intentions.

*No offense to Ladbrokes, but The Asian Poker Tour had the best Lady Gaga invitation of the year.

If you’ve read any of my past articles relating to television shows focusing on poker and online gambling then you know already that I think it’s a bad idea. I’m not alone on that, as NBC’s Face the Ace has been receiving abysmal ratings since it first debuted.  Surprisingly, someone out there wants to take credit for this idea.

 That someone is Brandon McSmith who says that he had pitched the idea for Face the Ace to Poker Productions two years ago. His pitch supposedly featured amateur poker players playing against professional poker players for a seat at the World Series of Poker. Oh and the professionals were hidden behind doors. If you’re not familiar (you probably aren’t since nobody watches it), the show pits your everyday online poker player against a mystery Full Tilt Poker pro hidden behind a smoked glass door. Sort of like “Let’s Make a Deal!” without cool costumes or cool…anything. The winner gets a million smackers and a seat at the World Series of Poker. The show is not-so-coincidentally produced by Poker Productions. Sounds pretty close to me.

McSmith is suing for $85,000,000 for his “idea.” I have to say that I am shocked that anyone would want to publicly lay claim to this show. I’m as big a fan of poker, online and off and I couldn’t be less interested in this show. I’m also shocked at the figure he’s chosen. $85,000,000 for a show about poker that is featured in the Saturday afternoon NBC lineup? Most major motion pictures don’t cost that much. Face the Ace certainly has not generated a fraction of that kind of cash. The only logical reason I can find for this is that somebody at NBC was so desperate to have someone else take the credit for this idea, that they will pay McSmith that much to say it was his. Then the amount seems appropriate.

Barack Obama is a polarizing figure to say the least. When he showed up on the scene seemingly out of nowhere, he became all the rage. This despite the fact that he only beat Blair Hull in the Illinois Senate Democratic Primary by having David Axelrod get Hull’s divorce records unsealed and then using that information to spread a lie that he hit his ex-wife, and the fact that he only won the Senate because Republican Jack Ryan withdrew from the race after, you guessed it, his divorce records were unsealed and the lie was spread that he tried to have sex with his own wife at a nightclub (Yes, folks, that was the scandal that destroyed Ryan’s career). Despite all of that, when Obama announced his candidacy for president, the media, college students and professors, and other people who listen to the media and college professors believed that he can walk on water. If Obama is The Chosen One, surely he would be a great poker player, right?

If there is one thing Obama has it is charisma. His public persona is that of a cool, confident leader, in spite of his weak grasp of politics and economics. His cool demeanor would serve him well at a poker table. Obama is also used to convincingly lying to the people, which would serve him well when bluffing. On the downside, Obama is not nearly as convincing or charismatic when he doesn’t have a teleprompter and planted questions, so he would be wise to pick a strategy ahead of time and stick to it. No going off script.

As Ricky pointed out in his Sarah Palin article, having a good nickname is important for poker players. President Obama has gone by a few different names. Back when he was hanging out with communists and drug dealers, he went by Barry. Some people call him by his middle name, Hussein, but his supporters are always quick to call those people racists for trying to make him sound like a Muslim, as if Barack and Obama are names as American as apple pie. Other names that he goes by, though unofficially, are The Messiah and The Anti-Christ, depending on who you talk to.

Good poker players are great at math, and with the way the national debt is rising and the amount of money being spent, Obama should certainly be good with numbers. A good poker player is also secretive, which certainly applies to Obama, who blocked virtually every document about his personal and professional life from being released to the public. Good poker players are also very disciplined, and I can only commend Obama’s restraint for never strangling Joe Biden after any of his attacks of verbal diarrhea. Good poker players have to be accepting of the fact that sometimes they will lose, and I’m not sure how Obama would handle that, because he doesn’t have a whole lot of experience with adversity. Hopefully, his opponents won’t get too annoyed at him gloating “I won” every time he scoops the chips toward him.

Most of the above skills seem to be in his favor, but the number one reason Barack Obama would be good at poker is because he is very good at taking other people’s money.

The past ten years have seen a surge of Poker popularity both online and as a beloved pastime. During that time, the early ’90s hit Rounders starring Matt Damon and Ed Norton has continued to grow its audience and expand into quite the pop culture phenom. This week, Pokerlistings dot com spoke with some of the original cast and writers and revealed that Rounders 2 is currently in the works!

Rumors of a sequel have been circulating for years, but all remained conjecture as its writers (and star Matt Damon) were busy with the Ocean’s franchise and countless other projects. But now it seems that the stars are aligning again and a sequel is…forgive me…in the cards.

“We’ve been concentrating on Rounders 2 lately,” said co-writer David Levien. “Ideas are percolating. It’s great to know that all of the original players want to come back and do another one.”

Even Matt Damon himself said, “Everybody would probably come back. The actors had a really good time working together.”

Writers David Levien and Brian Koppleman have become Holywood’s go-to guys for movies based in the world of gambling. Most recently having worked on Ocean’s 13 and are currently developing a film with Leonardo DiCaprio based in the world of offshore online casinos. “Vegas, the poker world, the casino environment, and the characters that gravitate around them are endlessly fascinating to us,” said Levien.

Don’t expect the film to open this summer, but with this many parties speaking so favorably, it sounds like this project could be in theaters before we know it.