Source: The New York Times, Feb. 22, 2008
Celebrity journalist Martha Frankel has interviewed Johnny Depp, Elizabeth Taylor and Robert DeNiro. But perhaps the most interesting story of her journalistic career is the one she has written about herself.
Ms. Frankel grew up in a loving, lively household of gamblers, a childhood she describes in her new memoir “Hats & Eyeglasses: A Family Love Affair with Gambling.” Her memories consist of her father’s poker games and mahjong with her mother’s friends, all while food simmered on the stove and laughter filtered through the home. She had her first kiss at the racetrack. The title comes from lessons she learned at her father’s regular card games and refers to those times when you’re “losing so bad your ship is sinking. All that’s left on the water’s surface are your hat and eyeglasses,” Ms. Frankel explains.
But it wasn’t until the age of 45 that Ms. Frankel rediscovered poker, becoming a skilled player in regular games with friends or at casinos. She won more than she lost, but the stakes were relatively low and poker remained mostly a social pursuit. After a dealer told her about Internet gambling, she logged on to a site called Paradise Poker and she was hooked. For more than a year she struggled with her compulsion, hiding it from her family and friends and losing tens of thousands of dollars before breaking free from the intoxicating allure of Internet gambling.
I spoke with Ms. Frankel recently and asked her to share her thoughts about the power of online gambling and the Internet.
Question: You tell the story of your childhood with such nostalgia, are you ever worried that you are making gambling a bit too appealing for your readers?
Answer: I see now what it was. It was this potent mix of love and food and gambling. I realize that I have recreated the same thing in my house as this place where food and love and talking were all part of this big stew that you wanted a piece of. I worry I make it sound really enticing, but here’s the truth. It is really enticing. There is something about playing cards. It’s so congenial, and yet there is something so stinging to it, you’re trying to beat your opponent who is normally your best friend. There is something about that that really teaches you a lot of lessons.
Question: How did you cross over from social gambling to getting hooked on Internet gambling?
Answer: I was in Atlantic City one night at the Taj Mahal. I love the Taj Mahal because you can still smell the cigars in there even though it’s a smoke-free environment. I asked a dealer, “How come nobody’s here?’’ And he said, “Why play here if you can stay home and play in your pajamas.”
My breath got caught. Back then it was not an easy thing to do. It took me four or five hours to download the site. I logged on and they give you play money at first. Every time the phone rang I got bounced offline because I only had dial-up. I did good with the play money and I immediately thought, “If I could do this for five hours a day, and make $100 an hour, why would I ever work?” I thought that immediately. The minute I started I was completely hooked on it.
Question: But you had played for years, why was the Internet your downfall?
Answer: The computer is addictive. There is something in its nature. From the minute I lost online I had this attitude of “they owe me 300 bucks.” Then the next day they owed me $600. I could never get past that. I was forever trying to make up what they owed me. At a casino I didn’t think like that. I’m not a chaser. If it’s not my day I’m happy to do something else. Online I couldn’t stop that thing of wanting to beat them. At a casino there is a very human element — someone is slow, someone says something funny, the dealer is a jerk. Online there is none of that. It’s a computer generating hand after hand after hand very quickly.
Question: What kind of stakes are we talking about?
Answer: At home I play for a quarter, half dollar. If you play like an idiot all night you might lose $100. In the casino, it might be pots of $400 to $1,200. Online, I lost between $50,000 and $70,000.
Question: At what point did you realize that you only had “hats and eyeglasses.’’
Answer: I realized probably two months into it, but I did it for another year and three months. Instead of stopping, I just kept believing that I could figure it out. It became so compulsive and obsessive. I dreamt about it and I thought about it. I realized I was getting up every single morning and thinking two things: please let me stop, or let me be brave enough to kill myself to stop this. Now I’m hearing from an unbelievable amount of people who are in the same boat I was.
Question: How did you get out of the boat?
Answer: My mother, who was getting very old and who I adored, called me hysterical and said, “What have I done? Why aren’t you talking to me?” The shame I felt that I had turned my back on the one person who believed in me more than anyone. It didn’t make me stop, but it made me stay away from my computer one second at a time. It took months. Finally, when I turned my computer on and deleted the site from my computer, it took me months to stop yearning for it.
Question: I’ve heard you predict that we are about to be hit with a “tsunami of online gamblers washing up on the beach.’’ Why do you say that?
Answer: I recently got a letter from a man, both he and his wife were addicted. He woke up, and she was playing even though they promised to stop. I felt so bad for him. Parents call me about their kids, and I say it sounds like they’re gambling online. I tell them to go on the computer and press “all programs” and read them, and they find Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker. I think we have no idea what is going to happen. I think women are more prone to this. At casinos, women play the slots where they don’t have to make eye contact with anybody else. But if you never had to leave your house, if you could just stay home in your pajamas and nobody ever had to know….
To learn more about Ms. Frankel and her work, visit her Web site here.
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