The fake felt of an online poker table blares a green glow across Kevin Schulz's face as he sits back in his chair twirling a poker chip through his fingers. His eyes sweep across the screen as he moves from table to table making bets and folding hands. His desk is covered with random cards, poker books and class folders. Music from iTunes blasts through his room but he is only thinking about his next move. His eyes suddenly stop moving across the screen and his hand stands still on his mouse. His opponent just placed a bet that would put him all in for $500. Does he want to risk
a month's rent and utilities on this one hand? Is he willing to lose a whole semester worth of textbooks? Finally life seems to snap back into him. Schulz, a junior in finance at the University of Illinois, has analyzed the situation, calculated the odds and considered the risks. He presses down and clicks the "call" button. His opponent's screen name stares back at him as they wait for the last card to flip over. He picks up a deck of cards and begins to shuffle them as he waits for his fate to be dealt.
This is the life of online poker and this is the situation that some students put themselves through numerous times a day. The stresses of poker become an obstacle that all serious players deal with on a daily basis, while these students are also faced with the challenge of classes and studying.
While Internet poker attracts gamblers looking for games that range from recreational play to high-stakes, there are people who make a living playing poker online. On the University of Illinois campus, there is a group of about 10 to 15 students who spend up to seven hours a day or more on the Internet winning cash that most college students can only dream about.
Schulz has been playing competitively online for only four months and he already plays in tournaments where he can win thousands of dollars on a weekly basis.
"The first tournament I ever won was at four in the morning and it was the biggest tournament I had ever played in at the time," Schulz said. He won $3000 in that tournament.
Most of these players compete in multiple tournaments per day, however, and can make large amounts of money when they combine their weekly winnings.
"I'd say I probably make anywhere between $7000 and $10,000 a week," said junior Andy Seth, who has been playing poker online for about a year.
In the relatively short amount of time that Seth has been playing, he has already enjoyed success and was recently ranked the 33rd best online player by pocketfives.com, an online poker newspaper that ranks the best 100 players in the world.
Other players also use their online success to get onto professional poker tours and travel the world playing in cash games against the world's best players.
A University senior in business, known in the online world as "The-Toilet," has taken his online playing and used it to lay the foundation for a career as a professional poker player.
"Recently I've been traveling in the European Poker Tour and basically we just go to a bunch of casinos all over Europe and play," he said. "Like, this year I have already been to Austria and Barcelona."
To enjoy poker success, however, players must dedicate hours of their days to playing online. The challenge for student players lies in trying to find a balance between poker and class.
Time spent playing poker can range anywhere between a couple of hours per day to hours that are comparable to a full-time job. Often, players find themselves having to balance their class schedules to fit their playing times.
"After doing this for a while I kind of found out what works and what doesn't work," said The-Toilet, who plays for about seven hours per day. "We're really no different than athletes when it comes to balancing our schedules."
Some players try to make the time between poker and class as even as possible. Their typical weekdays usually consist of going to class and then spending the rest of the day playing online and talking about game strategies with fellow players in online forums. Other players, however, make poker their top priority.
"I never attend class. School is pretty much secondary to me behind poker," said Seth, who regularly plays for 40-50 hours per week. "I'm basically going to school to get my degree and satisfy my parents."
Countless hours of playing, however, can do more than hurt grades. Professionals in the psychological world say that people who become addicted to gambling can experience the same highs and lows as drug addicts.
According to the article "'Behavioral' Addictions, Do they Exist?" written by Constance Holden published in the Nov. 2001 issue of Science Magazine, gamblers can build a tolerance which makes their cravings for betting stronger. They can also experience the same withdrawal symptoms as someone who is addicted to cocaine like having an upset stomach, sleep disturbance, irritability, sweating and cravings.
"I definitely think poker can become addictive, but a lot of players I know don't play with money they don't have," Schulz said. "We try to make sure we don't get too deep into it where we can't get out."
Addiction aside, the amount of money that players win and the risk of bad spending habits can be equally dangerous to a college student. With money
constantly flowing in, the temptation to spend the winnings increases.
"In the past I haven't been very smart with spending my money, but now I am starting to understand to conserve it whenever possible," Schulz said.
After the initial thrill of spending money on partying, new computers and flat-screen televisions, many players come to realize that in order to enjoy long-term success they must start
saving their money for the future.
"A lot of my friends are like, 'You just made $10,000, why don't go buy this or go buy that?'" The-Toilet said. "I see my money as more of an investment in my future though."
"I am really conservative with money by nature," Seth said. "Most of it is sitting in a bank just waiting to get invested."
While players continue to make thousands of dollars online, this flow of income from Internet poker could soon become a thing of the past due to a law recently passed by the government.
The Safe Port Act, signed into law on Oct. 13th, prohibits the transfer of funds within the U.S. from a bank to a gambling website. Since most gambling websites are overseas, this law will only prevent players within the United States from gambling on them.
"Hopefully the poker sites will find a way around it but I don't really know what's going on with it," Seth said.
The law is set to go into effect at the beginning of the new year and while it will only block people within the U.S. from playing, the results could be damaging to those all around the world who make a living off poker. Schulz said the main fear among internet pros in the U.S. and abroad is that the law will scare the "fish" - amateur players from whom the pros get most of their income - off the Internet and away from the game all together.
"The average recreational player isn't going to play anymore so a lot of people are going to have to choose between moving out of the country or moving to Vegas," Schulz said. "Most regular people will probably give up the game forever."
The-Toilet, however, says there is some optimism in the poker world, because players think that the government will have a difficult time regulating the $12 billion-a-year industry and that federal officials won't be able to keep Americans from making electric gambling transactions.
"Right now we're still able to play a lot but that could change," The-Toilet said. "I think it's going to be hard for them to enforce so we should be OK."
While the future of online gambling is still up in the air, these players know what kind of future poker will play in their lives.
"I plan to play professionally," Seth said. "I have a tournament in the Bahamas and ideally I will win that tournament."
The-Toilet looks to expand his young
rofessional career and also turn his winnings into future opportunities.
"I definitely plan on playing professionally full time," he said. "I want to use it as way of creating investments in business and real estate."
Schulz, who will be going to the Bahamas with Seth, said he would like to try and play poker professionally, but the game has really opened his eyes to what kind of future he wants.
"I don't know if I'm going to be good enough to play professionally, but poker has definitely showed me that I don't want to have a boring job and I don't want to have an average life."
a month's rent and utilities on this one hand? Is he willing to lose a whole semester worth of textbooks? Finally life seems to snap back into him. Schulz, a junior in finance at the University of Illinois, has analyzed the situation, calculated the odds and considered the risks. He presses down and clicks the "call" button. His opponent's screen name stares back at him as they wait for the last card to flip over. He picks up a deck of cards and begins to shuffle them as he waits for his fate to be dealt.
This is the life of online poker and this is the situation that some students put themselves through numerous times a day. The stresses of poker become an obstacle that all serious players deal with on a daily basis, while these students are also faced with the challenge of classes and studying.
While Internet poker attracts gamblers looking for games that range from recreational play to high-stakes, there are people who make a living playing poker online. On the University of Illinois campus, there is a group of about 10 to 15 students who spend up to seven hours a day or more on the Internet winning cash that most college students can only dream about.
Schulz has been playing competitively online for only four months and he already plays in tournaments where he can win thousands of dollars on a weekly basis.
"The first tournament I ever won was at four in the morning and it was the biggest tournament I had ever played in at the time," Schulz said. He won $3000 in that tournament.
Most of these players compete in multiple tournaments per day, however, and can make large amounts of money when they combine their weekly winnings.
"I'd say I probably make anywhere between $7000 and $10,000 a week," said junior Andy Seth, who has been playing poker online for about a year.
In the relatively short amount of time that Seth has been playing, he has already enjoyed success and was recently ranked the 33rd best online player by pocketfives.com, an online poker newspaper that ranks the best 100 players in the world.
Other players also use their online success to get onto professional poker tours and travel the world playing in cash games against the world's best players.
A University senior in business, known in the online world as "The-Toilet," has taken his online playing and used it to lay the foundation for a career as a professional poker player.
"Recently I've been traveling in the European Poker Tour and basically we just go to a bunch of casinos all over Europe and play," he said. "Like, this year I have already been to Austria and Barcelona."
To enjoy poker success, however, players must dedicate hours of their days to playing online. The challenge for student players lies in trying to find a balance between poker and class.
Time spent playing poker can range anywhere between a couple of hours per day to hours that are comparable to a full-time job. Often, players find themselves having to balance their class schedules to fit their playing times.
"After doing this for a while I kind of found out what works and what doesn't work," said The-Toilet, who plays for about seven hours per day. "We're really no different than athletes when it comes to balancing our schedules."
Some players try to make the time between poker and class as even as possible. Their typical weekdays usually consist of going to class and then spending the rest of the day playing online and talking about game strategies with fellow players in online forums. Other players, however, make poker their top priority.
"I never attend class. School is pretty much secondary to me behind poker," said Seth, who regularly plays for 40-50 hours per week. "I'm basically going to school to get my degree and satisfy my parents."
Countless hours of playing, however, can do more than hurt grades. Professionals in the psychological world say that people who become addicted to gambling can experience the same highs and lows as drug addicts.
According to the article "'Behavioral' Addictions, Do they Exist?" written by Constance Holden published in the Nov. 2001 issue of Science Magazine, gamblers can build a tolerance which makes their cravings for betting stronger. They can also experience the same withdrawal symptoms as someone who is addicted to cocaine like having an upset stomach, sleep disturbance, irritability, sweating and cravings.
"I definitely think poker can become addictive, but a lot of players I know don't play with money they don't have," Schulz said. "We try to make sure we don't get too deep into it where we can't get out."
Addiction aside, the amount of money that players win and the risk of bad spending habits can be equally dangerous to a college student. With money
constantly flowing in, the temptation to spend the winnings increases.
"In the past I haven't been very smart with spending my money, but now I am starting to understand to conserve it whenever possible," Schulz said.
After the initial thrill of spending money on partying, new computers and flat-screen televisions, many players come to realize that in order to enjoy long-term success they must start
saving their money for the future.
"A lot of my friends are like, 'You just made $10,000, why don't go buy this or go buy that?'" The-Toilet said. "I see my money as more of an investment in my future though."
"I am really conservative with money by nature," Seth said. "Most of it is sitting in a bank just waiting to get invested."
While players continue to make thousands of dollars online, this flow of income from Internet poker could soon become a thing of the past due to a law recently passed by the government.
The Safe Port Act, signed into law on Oct. 13th, prohibits the transfer of funds within the U.S. from a bank to a gambling website. Since most gambling websites are overseas, this law will only prevent players within the United States from gambling on them.
"Hopefully the poker sites will find a way around it but I don't really know what's going on with it," Seth said.
The law is set to go into effect at the beginning of the new year and while it will only block people within the U.S. from playing, the results could be damaging to those all around the world who make a living off poker. Schulz said the main fear among internet pros in the U.S. and abroad is that the law will scare the "fish" - amateur players from whom the pros get most of their income - off the Internet and away from the game all together.
"The average recreational player isn't going to play anymore so a lot of people are going to have to choose between moving out of the country or moving to Vegas," Schulz said. "Most regular people will probably give up the game forever."
The-Toilet, however, says there is some optimism in the poker world, because players think that the government will have a difficult time regulating the $12 billion-a-year industry and that federal officials won't be able to keep Americans from making electric gambling transactions.
"Right now we're still able to play a lot but that could change," The-Toilet said. "I think it's going to be hard for them to enforce so we should be OK."
While the future of online gambling is still up in the air, these players know what kind of future poker will play in their lives.
"I plan to play professionally," Seth said. "I have a tournament in the Bahamas and ideally I will win that tournament."
The-Toilet looks to expand his young
rofessional career and also turn his winnings into future opportunities.
"I definitely plan on playing professionally full time," he said. "I want to use it as way of creating investments in business and real estate."
Schulz, who will be going to the Bahamas with Seth, said he would like to try and play poker professionally, but the game has really opened his eyes to what kind of future he wants.
"I don't know if I'm going to be good enough to play professionally, but poker has definitely showed me that I don't want to have a boring job and I don't want to have an average life."
