Gambling & College
With the NCAA March Madness Tournament going on, the subjects of gambling and college life naturally intertwine this time of year. I’ve been reading a few recent reports on the issue, and it got me thinking back to my college days (that would be ‘way back’ relatively speaking for some of you).
To give y’all an idea when this was, I started college when Richard Nixon still resided at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. And, yes, a lot of things were different then compared to today. We thought we were hot stuff if we owned a TI-50 calculator for our engineering and chemistry classes back then; nowadays, I’m guessing you’re not on the cutting edge of technology without a bazillion-gig hard drive in your latest laptop.
But aside from the obvious changes in technology, one thing remains the same as it was 30-odd years ago: We did gamble in college, from poker games to sporting events. Hell, a few of us geeks even played bridge for a penny a point back then.
During my college tenure, I made a couple of trips to Vegas where my uncle had retired a major from the Air Force and eventually worked as a pit boss at Sam’s. That’s where I got my first real education in gambling, from cards, craps and roulette to bookmaking. After my first trip out there, I returned to college armed with all sorts of information, some of it even good info. I was also armed with a phone number for a bookie.
The 1978 World Series was the first time I used a sports book that wasn’t a legal LV casino. My roomie and I pooled $100 --- Big money for us back then --- made $50 bets on the Yanks in the first two games of that Series, lost ‘em both and both vowed we’d never do that again.
One year later we broke our vows. But we did manage to win a few dollars over the course of Pittsburgh’s 4-games-to-3 victory over Baltimore.
A few years back I was a bit surprised, perhaps naively so, when one of my nephews started describing the amount of gambling that went on at his university. It wasn’t just how many kids were doing it as much as the sophistication with which they went about their business. Definitely had an edge over my buddies and I a quarter century earlier. And the whole on-line poker scene is over the top now compared to the penny-nickel-dime games we played in the early-to-mid 70s.
Got me wondering how many of y’all trace your beginnings to college? How did you finance it and were your parents aware or have any inkling what you were doing? What were some of the early lessons you learned and how much gambling do you think goes on at colleges today?
To give y’all an idea when this was, I started college when Richard Nixon still resided at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. And, yes, a lot of things were different then compared to today. We thought we were hot stuff if we owned a TI-50 calculator for our engineering and chemistry classes back then; nowadays, I’m guessing you’re not on the cutting edge of technology without a bazillion-gig hard drive in your latest laptop.
But aside from the obvious changes in technology, one thing remains the same as it was 30-odd years ago: We did gamble in college, from poker games to sporting events. Hell, a few of us geeks even played bridge for a penny a point back then.
During my college tenure, I made a couple of trips to Vegas where my uncle had retired a major from the Air Force and eventually worked as a pit boss at Sam’s. That’s where I got my first real education in gambling, from cards, craps and roulette to bookmaking. After my first trip out there, I returned to college armed with all sorts of information, some of it even good info. I was also armed with a phone number for a bookie.
The 1978 World Series was the first time I used a sports book that wasn’t a legal LV casino. My roomie and I pooled $100 --- Big money for us back then --- made $50 bets on the Yanks in the first two games of that Series, lost ‘em both and both vowed we’d never do that again.
One year later we broke our vows. But we did manage to win a few dollars over the course of Pittsburgh’s 4-games-to-3 victory over Baltimore.
A few years back I was a bit surprised, perhaps naively so, when one of my nephews started describing the amount of gambling that went on at his university. It wasn’t just how many kids were doing it as much as the sophistication with which they went about their business. Definitely had an edge over my buddies and I a quarter century earlier. And the whole on-line poker scene is over the top now compared to the penny-nickel-dime games we played in the early-to-mid 70s.
Got me wondering how many of y’all trace your beginnings to college? How did you finance it and were your parents aware or have any inkling what you were doing? What were some of the early lessons you learned and how much gambling do you think goes on at colleges today?
