Sunday’s Washington Post ran an article on high school poker clubs, after-school activities where teens learn math skills by playing poker:
Fletcher had been on a tear during the past few meetings of the high school poker club – part of a nascent effort nationwide to take the game from casinos to classrooms, applying card-table concepts to math and logical-reasoning lessons.
As Fletcher’s pile of plastic chips grew last week, he smiled wide. “I don’t know whether math class is helping me with poker, or whether poker is helping me in math class,” he said.
George Mason’s school-sponsored poker club, which was founded in September, has quickly become one of the most popular extracurricular activities at the Falls Church high school. But it also has anti-gambling groups questioning whether it encourages potentially unhealthy habits in children.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t too detailed about how widespread such programs are or how exactly the learning is integrated with playing, which in my opinion would be the critical determinant of success.
Nonetheless, I think this is quite an interesting development. Dating back to ancient Greece and probably before, games have historically been a way of cultivating and rewarding skills that societies wish to see in their young people. Poker’s relationship to gambling has kept it in a separate category and often far away from young people, but I think that recent events demonstrate how badly the US population could use some lessons in financial decision-making.
That’s not to say that the concerns of the anti-gambling crowd are entirely invalid. It would be interesting to see some actual data suggesting a causal link between playing poker at a young age and developing a gambling problem. Hand-wringing and cries of, “Think of the children!” aren’t so convincing.