Never Ask of Money Spent, Where the Spender Thinks It Went

California poker rooms have been studied more intensely than any other gambling culture. I think it has to do with the number of nearby universities and the extraordinary education levels of a significant minority of the players. All that observation and data have failed to examine the financial aspects of Gardena, but they can still help us pinpoint who brought money in and who took it out.

To see the big picture, start with a simplified breakdown of the Gardena poker economy in a snapshot view. The proportions of different types of players varied throughout the day and year. You got different mixes at 10:00 A.M. on Christmas morning than at 4:00 A.M. on a Tuesday in June than at 10:00 P.M. on an October Friday. Things also changed over the years and, to a lesser extent, among different card rooms. At an average time, for example, about 70 percent of the players were at least somewhat familiar to the boardman; 30 percent were newcomers or people who played very rarely. However, that 30 percent represents many more individuals than the 70 percent, because the 30 percent changed all the time, while the 70 percent had a half-life of about four years (that is, if you look at the regulars today and four years from today, about half the group will be the same people). The numbers here include all the people in the card room-employees and railbirds as well as players-at an imaginary average point frozen in time. (See Figure 4.5.)

At the top of the social hierarchy, about 2 percent played for high stakes and were perceived as winning consistently. An equal-sized group played for high stakes but played wildly and lost consistently. These people were by far the biggest losers in the card room. Call the first group the winners and the second the action players. For every winner there were five people, 10 percent of the total population, who played in the high-stakes games and were perceived as break-even or losing players. They played more conservatively than the action players and lost less when they lost. I'll call these break-even players. So a typical high-stakes table had one winner, one action player, and five breakeven players. Another group, about the same size as the break-even players, won consistently, but at lower stakes. These subsistence players sometimes exchanged places with the break-even group.

Figure 4.5

At the bottom of the hierarchy was the 30 percent consisting of strangers, or tourists. As a group, they lost even more consistently than the action players. In between were the 40 percent perceived as breakeven or losing regular players at lower stakes. Call these the hobbyists. That leaves 6 percent for nonplayers. Of course, these are just rough estimates of a typical card room at a typical time. These groups are not well defined, except for the action players. The others fade into each other by degrees, and players move among them.

Money flows from the right-hand column to the left, from tourists to subsistence players and from action players to winners. The middle column contributes slightly to the left as well. Subsistence players in the lower left sometimes move back and forth with break-even players in the upper middle; this moves money from low-stakes games to high. Otherwise, most players tend to stay in their boxes, although a few tourists become hobbyists or subsistence players, or even move up to become break-even players and winners. Occasionally, people move down as well, although most people prefer to leave rather than accept a reduced status.

In the 1970s, a typical club had gross revenue of about $5 million per year, mostly from the seat charges but with some contribution from the sale of food and drink. It was home to about 10 winners and 50 subsistence players-the winners taking home about $50,000 per year and the subsistence players about $10,000 each, for a total of $1 million. The poverty line in 1975 was $5,050 for a family of four, and the median family income was $13,719. However, for reasons we will see, the incomes of the successful players were higher than they seemed.

That makes $6 million for card room revenue and winnings that had to be made up by the losers. I said there were typically about 50 subsistence players per card room, and at any given time there were about five times as many break-even players and hobbyists. But that represents many more people-say, 1,000 instead of 250-because the second group played about a quarter as many hours per week. There were three times as many tourists as subsistence players at any time, but that represents an even greater multiplier-say, 5,000 people instead of 150. There's really no way to know the difference between four people who come in once each and one person who comes in four times per year, especially if she visits different card rooms. These people had to contribute an average of $1,000 each. The actual amounts varied wildly. Some tourists showed up once and won, and some break-even players had a substantial profit for the year. Other players dropped $10,000 or more.

If you measure over a shorter interval than a year, you get more total wins and losses. For example, if you stood outside the cashier's cage and measured the total wins and losses of every player over every ses sion for a year, you would get something like $100 million won and $105 million lost. Since any given player will win or lose on different sessions, a lot of that money gets offset to total the $1 million won and $6 million lost over the year. This is what makes it so hard for a poker player to tell whether she is a winner or a loser, and still harder to see whether another player is winning or losing. Measured over hands, the numbers are probably another 20 times larger-$2 billion won and $2.006 billion lost, if you add up the money won and lost on every pot.

Дата добавления: 2015-10-26