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STATELINE — On a nondescript Wednesday afternoon inside Harveys, women wearing flashy jewelry yank on slot machines handles. Others roll dice at craps tables or watch blackjack dealers take their chips. It’s regular casino cinema, no different than what is was 25 years ago.
Then there is 24-year-old South Shore resident Josh Ewing, sitting at a poker table, flashing smiles and oozing with confidence. Ewing mingles with bearded middle-aged men or stares down gray-haired gentlemen old enough to be his grandpa.
Although it’s 3:30 p.m. — relatively early in last spring’s $500 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em tournament World Series of Poker event — Ewing has a healthy chip stack and appears nothing like poker players of the 1960s. Fresh faces, bright eyes and 1980s birthdates are devouring the poker craze.
“Oh, the young people are completely feeding it,” said Ewing, a Bay Area native and chemical engineering graduate. “I play about six days a week and average 40-50 hours per week. I look at it as a real job.”
Poker rooms are found at Harrah’s Lake Tahoe, Harveys, Caesars/MontBleau and at Lakeside Inn and Casino.
Poker as a profession
The UC Berkeley graduate is now a professional card player who’s earned more in the past six months playing poker than he could’ve working any menial job in Tahoe.
What happened to 20-somethings building a professional career?
Well, maybe that’s what he’s doing.
“I would interview for these jobs and these people hated their jobs so much they didn’t even know how to lie about why they liked them anymore,” Ewing said. “They’re not happy. I didn’t want to be like that.”
This type of talk doesn’t surprise Nolan Dalla, World Series of Poker media relations director. He’s been around the game for several decades. He knows the current trend isn’t stopping anytime soon.
“Just five years ago, you couldn’t have seen this coming,” Dalla said. “Television really changed things. The younger kids watch a lot television and with the Internet, (it has) really made it popular. And I don’t see it changing anytime soon. It will probably get even bigger. You can make a lot of money playing poker now.”
A national craze
For decades, poker was reserved for tough guys, outlaws and riverboat gamblers, played in underground clubs or casinos in Nevada or Atlantic City. Now it’s played on dozens of Web sites and hundreds of Indian Reservations nationwide. Almost any night of the week, poker can be seen on ESPN and the Travel Channel, whether it’s Celebrity Poker, the World Poker Tour or re-runs of last year’s World Series of Poker.
“It’s amazing,” said Stan Miller, an assistant manager at Neighbors Books and Music. “ESPN2 is so powerful. Don’t underestimate that. When we first opened (December, 2003), we used to sell maybe three to four poker books a week. Now we sell anywhere from 8-10 books a week. And it’s mostly younger people buying the books.”
Indeed, poker’s popularity is obvious at Neighbors, less than a mile from where Ewing has been chasing big tournament earnings.
Then there is 24-year-old South Shore resident Josh Ewing, sitting at a poker table, flashing smiles and oozing with confidence. Ewing mingles with bearded middle-aged men or stares down gray-haired gentlemen old enough to be his grandpa.
Although it’s 3:30 p.m. — relatively early in last spring’s $500 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em tournament World Series of Poker event — Ewing has a healthy chip stack and appears nothing like poker players of the 1960s. Fresh faces, bright eyes and 1980s birthdates are devouring the poker craze.
“Oh, the young people are completely feeding it,” said Ewing, a Bay Area native and chemical engineering graduate. “I play about six days a week and average 40-50 hours per week. I look at it as a real job.”
Poker rooms are found at Harrah’s Lake Tahoe, Harveys, Caesars/MontBleau and at Lakeside Inn and Casino.
Poker as a profession
The UC Berkeley graduate is now a professional card player who’s earned more in the past six months playing poker than he could’ve working any menial job in Tahoe.
What happened to 20-somethings building a professional career?
Well, maybe that’s what he’s doing.
“I would interview for these jobs and these people hated their jobs so much they didn’t even know how to lie about why they liked them anymore,” Ewing said. “They’re not happy. I didn’t want to be like that.”
This type of talk doesn’t surprise Nolan Dalla, World Series of Poker media relations director. He’s been around the game for several decades. He knows the current trend isn’t stopping anytime soon.
“Just five years ago, you couldn’t have seen this coming,” Dalla said. “Television really changed things. The younger kids watch a lot television and with the Internet, (it has) really made it popular. And I don’t see it changing anytime soon. It will probably get even bigger. You can make a lot of money playing poker now.”
A national craze
For decades, poker was reserved for tough guys, outlaws and riverboat gamblers, played in underground clubs or casinos in Nevada or Atlantic City. Now it’s played on dozens of Web sites and hundreds of Indian Reservations nationwide. Almost any night of the week, poker can be seen on ESPN and the Travel Channel, whether it’s Celebrity Poker, the World Poker Tour or re-runs of last year’s World Series of Poker.
“It’s amazing,” said Stan Miller, an assistant manager at Neighbors Books and Music. “ESPN2 is so powerful. Don’t underestimate that. When we first opened (December, 2003), we used to sell maybe three to four poker books a week. Now we sell anywhere from 8-10 books a week. And it’s mostly younger people buying the books.”
Indeed, poker’s popularity is obvious at Neighbors, less than a mile from where Ewing has been chasing big tournament earnings.
