Brian Koppelman, writer of Rounders, has a depressing, surprisingly anti-gambling column in today's New York Observer.

I spent years playing cards, shooting dice, betting on anything anytime I thought I might have an edge. Even after it had become clear to me that in the long run, you never really do have an edge, I kept at it. I once bet the best basketball player on Long Island that I could beat him at HORSE if he’d give me a three-letter spot, and lost HOR to HORSE. I played the captain of my college’s squash team in squash, for money, even though I had never held a racquet until that afternoon. I have bet on ball games between teams I knew nothing about, and have walked out of more gaming establishments with empty pockets and maxed-out A.T.M. cards than I really care to count up.

Link

As the author of the most pro-poker mainstream film in recent history, and recently commissioned writer of a TV series about college gambling, I find his column incredibly hypocritical. If he really thinks gambling and poker are such evils, he probably shouldn't have written a movie glorifying a young man's passion to become a professional poker player.

God, the guy has a frikkin' gambling problem, not a poker problem. He's an idiotic hypocrite if he thinks teaching his son cards is a bad thing. Let me make it clear that there's no reason he can't teach him to love the blues, how to fish & hunt, how to paint, and how to do double-entry bookkeeping at the same time...like my dad did. What a self-absorbed fool.

Posted by: Scott Chaffin on February 25, 2004 07:27 PM

I wonder if the producers of his new show know he feels this way?
Yikes!
js

Posted by: Jason on February 26, 2004 02:01 PM

I agree; I re-read the column a few times, and kept thinking "what is he trying to accomplish by writing this?" I'm still not sure I get it. This guy has built his career on being a writer about poker and gambling, and he's written this rambling, somewhat anti-gambling column with no direct point. I find it strange.

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