MR. KOJO NNAMDIFrom WAMU 88.5 at American University in Washington, welcome to "The Kojo Nnamdi Show," connecting your neighborhood with the world. Think of a professional poker player and someone like Amarillo Slim might come to mind, a legendary gambler in a Stetson hat who swept up thousands of dollars from oil tycoons in dimly-lit back rooms. But sit down at a live poker table at the Maryland Live Casino in suburban Baltimore and you'll encounter a different breed of poker player, from big-time professionals making thousands of dollars off amateurs at no-limit games, to savvy smaller-scale pros who make hundreds of dollars per hour at lower-stakes tables.

MR. KOJO NNAMDIThey're part of an expanding world of poker, fueled at first by the rise of Internet poker, then shaken up when the federal government shut those sites down. Joining me to discuss this is Colson Whitehead. He's a novelist and author of several books. His latest work of nonfiction chronicles his entry into the 2011 World Series of Poker. It's titled, "The Noble Hustle: Poker, Beef Jerky, and Death." He joins us from studios at WHYY in Philadelphia. Colson Whitehead, thank you for joining us.

MR. COLSON WHITEHEADHey, howdy. Thanks for having me.

NNAMDIGood to hear from you. Also joining us from Bryant Park studios, NPR's Bryant Park studios, is David Samuels. He's a writer and contributor to several magazines, including The Atlantic. He recently reported on professional poker players at Maryland Live in a piece titled, "Where the Card Sharks Come to Feed." David, Samuels, thank you for joining us.

MR. DAVID SAMUELSThank you.

NNAMDIAnd Greg Merson is a professional poker player and winner of the 2012 World Series of Poker. Greg joins us by phone from Laurel, Md. Greg Merson, thank you for joining us.

MR. GREG MERSONHey, thanks for having me on.

NNAMDIDavid Samuels, I'll start with you. Maryland votes approved live table games back in 2012. And Maryland Live rolled out poker games like Texas Hold 'em a little more than a year ago. It's been good timing for a generation of poker players who learned the game online but were kicked off gambling sites back in 2011, after the government shut them down. You wrote about a few of those poker pros in your recent piece for The Atlantic. What do you think makes this new class of poker players so skilled at the game?

SAMUELSWell, I think that they, you know, if you play online, you're playing eight or more hands at a time. You're seeing tens of thousands of hands over a few months. And I think that exposure quickens the reflexes, as it were. And it quickly weeds out people who don't have the stamina or the processing speed to keep up. And the people who were good made six figures. And when they couldn't make it anymore, they had to play live.

NNAMDIYou know, not all poker pros play in the televised tournaments we see on ESPN, David. Some stick to their local casino to make a living, the ones you refer to as the sharks. We'll soon be seeing a lot more of them in Prince George's County and Baltimore. What were those players doing before poker? And how were they able to make a decent salary by heading to a casino every day?

SAMUELSWell, some of them were college students who were good at the online games. Some of them, the ones who were a little older, tended to be in, you know, fields where you had to be numerically literate. They were management consultants or this and that. And I think it was exciting to go there and watch. It's as fun to watch as professional basketball or hip-hop or golf, depending on your tastes.

SAMUELSYou're looking at people who are highly, highly skilled, not just in, you know, probabilities, but also in judging in a split second the likely actions and reactions and the meanings of those actions of the other people at the table. And I think if you like people and you like human psychology, the game is really a treat.

NNAMDI800-433-8850 is our number. Did you vote for the expansion of gambling in 2012 in Maryland? Is this what you were expecting? 800-433-8850. You can send email to kojo@wamu.org. Colson Whitehead, in your latest book you share your experience playing in one of the more high-profile games, the World Series of Poker. You covered the event for the sports magazine Grantland. And in exchange, they paid your $10,000 entry fee. You are a writer by profession. What made you even want to do this?

WHITEHEADWell, you know, I love poker. I've been playing, you know, for 20 years. Unfortunately, my home game is a $5 buy-in, which is very much a different beast from the World Series of Poker and even low-stakes casino tournament poker. So I had to get a lot of books and get a poker coach and beef up my game for the six weeks I had before I went to the Word Series.

NNAMDIWhile training for that World Series, you came to recognize a few of the typical characters at poker tables in Atlantic City. Can you tell us about the different types of players you observed?

WHITEHEADSure. I mean, I -- it was a month after they shut down the online poker sites. So I had to train in real life casinos, like the young people that David was talking about. So on a Friday night in Atlantic City there's a few different types of people. There's Big Mitch, who's sort of your average home player, a middle-aged white guy there for the weekend. Perhaps his wife is gambling, playing slots or roulette or craps in the next room. And he, you know, he plays with his friends. He wants to make some money, win a big hand or two and brag to his friends back home about his great weekend.

WHITEHEADThere's Methy Mike, a certain type, a sort of scary local character. You know, they know the waitresses and the dealers by name. Iggy Pop looks at them and says, wow, you've really let yourself go. So the sort of harrowed types, sort of intimidating looking. Of course they're perfectly nice. And then the Robotrons, you know?

NNAMDIMy personal favorite.

WHITEHEADSure, yeah, it was 2011 and they were released from their basement dungeons to play in, you know, in real life brick-and-mortar situations. And they're, you know, they're very, you know, a lot of them are very wiry. They have their hoodies cinched tight, sunglasses, often with earbuds in, listening to self-help books or death metal, who knows? You know, it's a stereotype, but that sort of describe a certain type of aggressive young player.

NNAMDIGreg, are you a Robotron?

MERSONNo, but I guess I used to be when I...

NNAMDIYou were part of a generation of players who started out on online sites like poker.com and pokerstars.com, right?

MERSONYeah. I started playing on -- actually on PartyPoker in 2005.

NNAMDIWhat did you know about poker before playing online?

MERSONNothing really. Actually the first 8 or 10 times I played, I had to have a handwritten card that told me what beat what, in terms of what hands beat other hands, so that I knew how to play the game.

NNAMDIAt what point along the way did you decide to play professionally?

MERSONI started in -- at the end of 2007. My first original attempt at doing it was early 2006, but that only lasted about a month, where I realized I needed to get better. So I actually went back to school -- I went back to school basically only so that I could get better at poker, so I could please my parents. But all I was doing was practicing so that I could take another shot at it.

NNAMDIWhen online sites were still legal in the U.S., a user could go online, play multiple hands at a time. What are you able to learn, Greg, about poker online, that you couldn't learn at a live table?

MERSONYes, you're just able to be able to see so many more hands per hour. So here's a good example. When you play at a live casino, you're normally going to see 30 or 35 hands per hour, will be dealt by the dealer. But since there is no dealer on the Internet, you're going to see about twice as many hands per hour per table. So I got to the point where I was playing 24 tables at a time and I was seeing upwards of 2,000 hands an hour. So one hour for me on the Internet was like playing 70 hours of live poker. So I was able to just improve drastically over a two- or three-year period, which may have taken me 10 years or so of live poker to get to that level of knowledge of the game.

NNAMDIIn case you're just joining us, we're talking about card sharks, poker-table dynamics and inviting your calls at 800-433-8850. What do you think of the poker industry today? Do you follow tournaments like the World Series of Poker on ESPN? 800-433-8850. We're talking with Greg Merson. He's a professional poker player and winner of the 2012 World Series of Poker. David Samuels is a writer and contributor to several magazines, including The Atlantic. He recently reported on professional poker players at Maryland Life. His piece was titled, "Where the Card Sharks Come to Feed."

NNAMDIAnd Colson Whitehead is a novelist, author of several books. His latest work of nonfiction chronicles his entry into the 2011 World Series of Poker. The title, "The Noble Hustle: Poker, Beef Jerky, and Death." 800-433-8850. Or you can send email to kojo@wamu.org. David, it's commonly thought that you need a well trained poker face to be a good player. But online, one can't see any of one's opponents facial expressions. So how did these online players make the transition to live play?

SAMUELSYou know, I think that physical tells, like smirking or, you know, hiding your hands or whatever people do -- they play a role in poker. But I think, in general, people find the speed of someone's bet to be a more useful tell. And you certainly see that online. And people are telling a story, you know, with each round of betting. They're representing a hand. And as more cards come up, that story may start to become implausible. And they will try to make it plausible or they'll give it up. And I think that learning to read those cues, to follow the story that someone's trying to tell, you can do that just as easily online and in fact it's probably less distracting.

NNAMDIColson, you mentioned earlier that your experience in poker prior to accepting this assignment was mostly limited to low-stakes games. What did you learn about people's playing habits and behavior when you started playing high-stakes poker?

WHITEHEADWell, you know, a tournament has a different rhythm to a home game. You know, a social home game, people are getting, you know, talking about their allergies, talking about all their life stuff. Nothing's really happening. You have to say, like, hurry up and play. And, you know, you're there just, you know, to catch up with friends in a low-stakes game. A tournament has a different sort of lifecycle. There are different rhythms. You're playing for days, for hours, when should you be aggressive, when should you be accumulating chips?

WHITEHEADSo that's one of the first things I learned. I was reading the wrong books when I started training and I had to read, obviously, tournament books. And then people like Greg and other, you know, players I talked to are juggling tells, the betting patterns that David just mentioned, all sorts of different factors which I found, you know, very mindboggling. And it took me awhile to get over my, you know, trying to just keep my hands from shaking as I reached for chips and try to juggle all the things that really high-level players routinely are mastering at the table and executing.

NNAMDIGreg, now that you're playing regularly at live tables, what kinds of behavior cues do you pay attention to?

MERSONOkay, I guess a few things would be the way people stack their chips will give you an idea of whether they play tight or loose, just from a first observation type read. And then a big thing for me, like, one of the things I look at the most is how -- is the timing of their bets and what they're doing with their hands as they're betting and as they're taking their hands from a bet. Like I normally don't even actually look at someone's face. I just look at their hands and what they're doing with their hands.

NNAMDIWhich -- which...

MERSONI mean, unless they're sitting there robotically and not doing anything, then I'll look at their whole body. But typically I just like to read people off of, you know, when they release the chips in the pot, how fast do they bring their hand back to wherever it was prior either to the table rail or back to their chips. I think you can get a fairly decent sense of whether someone is confident or weak.

NNAMDIWhich brings me back to you, Colson, because you start your book by saying, I have a good poker face because I'm half dead inside. I heard you describe what that means before but if you're playing somebody like Greg, he's looking at your hands, which might be shaking.

WHITEHEADWell, yes, I'm definitely a mark at a casino, definitely at the World Series of Poker. You know, I had my notebooks. I was studying and I, you know, was very confident that I wouldn’t mess up too badly when I walked into the World Series. And of course, every level I made some big mistake, either knocking my chips over or betting too small, you know, just in trying to, you know, keep my head together.

WHITEHEADYou know, I think the one thing, you know, when I was training, you know, on TV, you see people wearing sunglasses. And I thought, oh I'd never wear sunglasses. It's kind of jerky at the table. And then when I walked into the Rio where they hold the World Series that first day, I was wearing sunglasses because I was coming in from the airport. And walking among, you know, this sort of big airplane hangar convention hall where there's 200 something tables of everyone sort of playing and manically throwing in chips, I definitely thought, I'm wearing the sunglasses at the World Series. I don't care. You know, it makes me feel better. Yeah, so I got over it.

NNAMDIOn to Fred in Alexandria, Va. Fred, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

FREDHi. One question. Well, let me say, I'm a big admirer of Greg Merson. He's quite a man and a very nice guy I met once and just briefly. In any event, I'm an older guy who loves poker. I'm not looking for any high stakes or big tournament buy-ins. Actually, for several years, I've done very well in tournaments over time and I was doing well in cash games. Now in tournaments, my biggest buy-in is like maybe a $330 tournament and I play cash two-five.

FREDAnd I've done real well in tournaments, but my cash game seems to have gone down the tubes, especially since I played the first few months that Maryland Live was open. And I wonder if Greg or your author has any advice other than pace about playing cash games.

NNAMDIGreg and David.

MERSONDavid, you want me to go first?

SAMUELSYeah, go ahead, Greg.

MERSONI think the biggest adjustment for me is the -- the difference is in tournaments because of the antes, you're allowed to play a little bit more aggressively than you should in cash games. You know, the blinds are going up. There's antes -- after a certain level, there's antes that kick in for every hand for the rest of the tournament. So cash games are rewarding playing tight since there's only one-and-a-half lines in the middle.

MERSONAnd when you're playing nine-handed with no straddle, it's -- you know, the correct strategy is just play tight. And it's such a big adjustment, even for myself. So if you're, you know, if you're having trouble playing cash, that could be one of the reasons. You know, maybe you do well in tournaments because you play fairly aggressive preflop and raise preflop more than you should in a cash game.

MERSONAnd if you try to take the same strategy to both, it's going to be tough when, you know, most of the players at the table are playing pretty tight in cash, especially the pros. So it's hard to really make money off of them when they're playing better hands than you are. So I guess that's, like, my one piece of advice.

NNAMDIDavid.

SAMUELSI'd just make a more general statement which is, you know, we as Americans like competition and we like to turn things into a competition. We like to have a winner and a loser. We like to know who's the best in the world at this and the best in the world at that. One of the reasons why I find watching poker so interesting is that it is sort of the isolation of a skill set that we use throughout the rest of our lives. We're always making snap judgments about people. We don't know whether we're right or wrong.

SAMUELSIn poker you find out quick if you were right or wrong. We observe tendencies in people. We think that we know what they're going to do. In poker you find out if you're right or wrong. We send signals to other people about our patterns. This is a good way of finding out what those signals are and whether they're being read correctly or too easily or whatever. I think that, you know, poker is such a fascinating game because it mimics the interactions that we have in life.

SAMUELSAnd there is -- you know, it changes. You put it in a tournament, it's going to change. You put it in a casino floor, it's going to change. You put it in someone's house, it's going to change. But at root what it's showing in a way that, you know, a slot machine or roulette or other so-called games of chance don't show us is something fundamental about ourselves. It's a mirror. And that's, you know, always for me the thing that separates it clearly from forms of gambling.

NNAMDIColson, as you headed into the World Series of Poker your goal was not to lose completely but to make it to day three. Your description of your mindset, as you sat down at your first table is fascinating. Once you finally started playing in the World Series, how did you find it? How well were you able to avoid the end of being just a wreck?

WHITEHEADWell, I mean, you know, the year I played there were 6800 people playing, which is a lot of folks. And some of them are pros. And a lot of them are just people who love the game. You know, it's $10,000. It's a lot of money to scrape together to go. So they've been waiting years. You know, home players who play a lot -- you know, much bigger stakes than I do.

WHITEHEADAnd so the first day, I definitely wanted to not go out the first hand or first hour because it would suck to, you know, train for six weeks and write an article and then go out, you know, so quickly. And a lot of other people at the table were in the same, you know, similar position. You know, they had taken a week off work to fly out to Los Vegas, get a hotel room and play in the World Series and do this thing they've been wanting to do for years and years.

WHITEHEADAnd so, you know, that first table was very passive, tight. No one wanted to really mix it up too much. And as -- you know, as the days went on and people went all in and went out and were consumed by the World Series, you know, I was formally intimidated by these guys. And then, you know, by the end, I just saw them as, you know, just normal people who do love poker and had made this big sacrifice to come out.

WHITEHEADSo once I mellowed out and stopped being so nervous and played and really sort of put everything I've learned into my game lay, I started having more fun and, you know, approaching and getting a glimpse of what people like Greg and, you know, my friend Matt Matros sort of feel every day, this sort of higher poker atmospheres.

NNAMDIGot to take a short break. When we come back, we'll be continuing this conversation about poker table dynamics and card sharks. 800-433-8850 is the number to call. Were you one of the players who learned poker online before gambling sites were banned three years ago? Are you someone who makes a living off of playing poker? Give us a call, 800-433-8850 or send email to kojo@wamu.org. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.

NNAMDIWelcome back to our conversation on poker table dynamics. Our guests, Colson Whitehead is a novelist and author of several books. His latest work is a nonfiction book that talks about his entry into the 2011 World Series of Poker, chronicles the event. It's titled "The Noble Hustle: Poker, Beef Jerky and Death." He joins us from the studios of WHYY in Philadelphia. Greg Merson joins us by phone from Laurel, Md. He's a professional poker player and winner of the 2012 World Series of Poker.

NNAMDIDavid Samuels is a writer contributor to several magazines including The Atlantic. He recently reported on professional poker players at Maryland Live. His piece is titled "Where the Card Sharks Come to Feed. You can call us at 800-433-8850. What do you think makes poker different from other types of gambling like slot machines or roulette, 800-433-8850?

NNAMDIDavid, you report on professional players that make a living playing poker at Maryland Live. But the money they take home, well, it comes from the pockets of other people at the table. Some might think that as a profession poker playing sounds a little, well, unethical. What would you say?

SAMUELSI think that there's a vast difference between slot machines or roulette wheels and poker. I think poker really is a game of skill. I don't think it's any more unethical to take money from people who walk into a casino poker room than it is to charge, you know, 150 bucks to go see a baseball game, or to get an education. People want to learn the skill. They're learning by playing with some of the world's best players. And it's entertainment.

SAMUELSNow do people become addicted to that? They do. They also become addicted to alcohol, to professional sports, to sex, to any other because we're humans and we have that capacity. In some ways, to me, the thing that's really interesting about the poker boom is that I think it does feed into a desire that people have to have a level playing field. You know, people see these skill sets being exercised by investment bankers. Well, you can't walk in somewhere and be an investment banker. You can't just show up and be a hedge fund trader.

SAMUELSWithout, you know, the requisite physical abilities you can't walk onto a basketball court and be any good either. There's something about poker where at once you're seeing people with extraordinary skills but they don't have to have any other special advantage. And I think in that sense, it's something that's quite democratic. I'd also say that in the poker world, there are people like Greg, who I admire not just because he's a really fun player to watch, but also because he's been very outspoken about keeping things open and giving people a chance to see how skilled they actually are and to play in games.

SAMUELSAnd then there are people who, you know, are promoting the same kinds of closed cabals that profit a few people that you see in finance and other areas of American life.

NNAMDIBefore I get to Greg, Colson, I'd like you to take on this because we think of poker as being a game of risk. But according to David's reporting, some pros seem to seek out opponents who they can safely and easily beat, call them fish, call them bait, call them suckers, whatever you call them. What do you feel about the ethics of that?

WHITEHEADI mean, no one's forcing you to play low stakes, high stakes poker. You do it because you like it. Obviously people are -- three are gambling addicts and there are people who are in way over their head. I think -- but that's not the majority of people who are sitting down on a weekend in Atlantic City. You know, they're having a nice dinner. You know, they're playing a tournament, playing for a couple hours and then went out to a club. I mean, you know, people sort of criticize Las Vegas. It's there to, you know, take your money and bankrupt you.

WHITEHEADActually they want you to have a really nice time and come back next year and spend more money. So they want you to lose a certain amount, have a memorable experience and then come back. And so, I think the new sort of resort mentality of Vegas, I think really sort of gets -- you know, captures this aspect of gambling. It's fun. People are getting pleasure out of it. They're going for a 48-hour, you know, trip to escape, you know, their thing about their mortgage or a leaky roof or a loud neighbor. And, you know, it's your own choice.

NNAMDIGreg, David mentioned hedge funds. It's my understanding, according to David, that you were offered an internship to a hedge fund. Is that correct?

MERSONYeah, back in 2011 I was playing with a hedge fund guy who actually interviewed me in the Bellagio Sports Book. It was about a 90-minute interview. And, yeah, I mean, it was some pretty interesting stuff. I would say about 85 percent of what he was explaining to me from a trading standpoint transferred over to poker. And there is a lot of similarities between the two, especially online poker and day trading.

MERSONBut even though it was a pretty awesome opportunity, I just didn't want to -- I mean, I just love poker. And, like, even if I made 10 percent a year what I could make trading playing poker, that's fine with me because I love what I do. So...

NNAMDII wanted to get back to David's writing again about pros seeking out opponents who they can safely and easily beat. Greg, to what extent can you eliminate the risk in a game like poker, which most people think of as a game of chance?

MERSONYeah, I mean, it's pretty simple to just play against people that are worse than you. But because, you know, men in general are very egotistical human beings, they like the challenge of playing in games where, you know, they're really forced to make tough decisions. And they're using their brains. So a lot of people play higher than they should play.

MERSONObviously there's the people that just have the money to lose and don't care about losing thousands of dollars because they can afford to. And they use it as a source of entertainment. But, I mean, from a professional standpoint, if you're trying to make a living doing this, you should always be playing games you think you can beat. And, you know, that's just how you pay the bills and that's, you know, very important part of playing for a living.

MERSONAnd I think the people that are around today that have been around for quite some time now, eight, ten years playing for a living, they're the ones that have kept that strategy and have never let the ego get in the way where they're playing games where there would actually be a losing player.

NNAMDIDo you think you can ever get to that point?

MERSONTo what point?

NNAMDIThe point where you let your ego get in the way?

MERSONI mean, it certainly got in the way over the years, but, I mean, it's never really been a problem for me. I've always been really good about playing stuff that I think I can beat. For example, there's now $100,000 buy-ins all over the world. There's probably two of them a month now. And I've only played two of them and I could afford to play basically all of them to a certain extent. And I just -- I don't really see myself being able to beat some of the fields that are getting the other...

NNAMDIWhat's everything? You've already won the World Series of Poker. What's everything? What's more to accomplish?

MERSONOh well, I mean, there's this new I guess this fad in poker where they have $100,000 buy-in tournaments that last three days. And they're very attractive to the high profile amateur players that want to play a poker tournament but don't want to play it five, six, seven days long. So they make the buy-in super high and then they only make the tournament last three days. And the shorter the tournament lasts, the more luck there is because the blinds are going up faster and they're ending it quicker. So you're playing less hands and therefore there's less still involved to a certain extent.

MERSONAnd I just -- the pros that play in those are very good at that format. And I don't consider myself very spectacular in that format. And, you know, that's like in the (word?), I could be hopping in those all over the place, but instead I just invest money into players that are better than myself at that format and it's been working out for me. But, yeah, I mean, that's just an example of me putting ego aside. I mean, I would love to play those things but it just -- I kind of just pick and choose the ones I think are going to be the best value.

NNAMDIColson, the World Series of Poker is actually happening next week. Back in 2000, a writer named James McManus wrote about his shot in the tournament in a book called "Positively Fifth Street: Murderers, Cheetahs and Binion's World Series of Poker." He ended up taking home more than $200,000, but you point out that the World Series of Poker changed after his book was published. Can you talk about that, about the money-maker effect?

WHITEHEADSure. I mean, you know, when the World Series started in 1970, it was seven players called together by Benny Binion who was a casino owner in Vegas. And, you know, it grew steadily. It in 1980, I think it was like 70 players. And in the year McManus, who, you know, as a writer who, you know, as a writer who, you know, got to the final table as a sort of God among writer players.

WHITEHEADWhen he played in 2000 it was 500 people. Two years after that, three years after that Chris Moneymaker, who was an amateur player, who had been playing online for a bit, got -- played a satellite, a cheaper sort of -- a cheaper game that allows you, if you win, to, you know, sort of move up and get into the World Series, a player. So he played $40-something, got into the World Series. And ended up winning the whole thing. And that is the money-maker effect. That's his actual name, Chris Moneymaker.

WHITEHEADAnd the next year it went from 800 people to 2,500 to, you know, the 7,000 when I played. If a home player, who's playing online could do it, why not any sort of person at home? Why not someone who's been playing for a year and cramming, you know, that years of experience by playing eight games at once? Why not you? So you're playing at home. You love the game. And finally the sort of schlubby person like you is going to the top. And it's a great, you know, it's a great myth.

WHITEHEADAnd since then, you know, the field has changed so much that the final table is not dominated by the crusty cowboys you talked about in the first minute of the program, the Amarillo Slims, the Tupelo Joes. It's young people who grew up watching televised poker and playing online.

NNAMDIGreg, you've been playing in these tournaments, and as we've been mentioning, you won the World Series of Poker two years ago. To what extent have you noticed this influx of amateurs and how has that changed the dynamics of the tournaments?

MERSONYeah, I mean, I was never really around before the boom. So I came up through the boom. So I can't really comment on how it's changed going from a small amount of amateurs to a lot of amateurs. But I can comment on the fact that over the last five or six years poker has become a lot more difficult in that there's so much more information out there about how to get good at the game. And especially now that it's a worldwide game, it's very popular in Russia and Asia and Australia.

MERSONAnd there's just so many more pros now than there's ever been. And there's less and less amateurs getting involved in the game, due to the online legislation around the world being different in multiple countries. And especially in the U.S., we don't have online poker. Those are really -- that's a really big factor for these live tournaments because the reason they were growing so quickly is because people could qualify for them online for $10, $50, $100 to get into a $10,000 tournament.

MERSONWell, now that's not the case. So that's hurting the number of amateurs that you're going to see in these high profile events, as well as just the fact that there's more pros these days than ever, that you're going to see much more stacked fields with talented players and less amateur players. This is outside of the World Series main event, which is still holding strong at 6,500 players or so each year. It hasn't really declined too much in the last five years. It's pretty much held steady between 6,000 and 7,000 and has tons of amateurs.

NNAMDIAnd, David Samuels, based on your article, "Where the Card Sharks Come to Feed," coming soon to a neighborhood near you, in Prince George's County or in Baltimore, a lot of card sharks coming to feed. Does that in any way impact the culture in those neighborhoods?

SAMUELSYeah, I mean, I imagine that a lot of the people who come to Maryland Live, they were playing in home games with their friends. And then they end up in a casino instead and probably those home games, at least for, you know, the first few months, aren't as robust. But I think it's also good to, you know, get out in the world. If you think you're a great golfer, it's probably good to play with good golfers and see if you're any good. And if you're a good writer, it's good to actually read other people's work and see how you stack up in what you do differently.

SAMUELSSo I don't see casinos as an evil. And I don't see poker rooms as bad. In fact, you know, to me there's something that tickled me about the idea that, you know, through legislation, however misguided, people had actually been thrown off the internet and been forced to leave their dungeons and had to go, you know, play live and encounter a little more of the human being.

SAMUELSI mean, I'd love it if that was, you know, one of my dreams is that the whole internet will shut down one day. And all the people who write online would have to publish in magazines and interact with humans again. And in general I think that would be a kind of paradise that I'd enjoy.

NNAMDIDavid Samuels, he's a writer and contributor to several magazines, including The Atlantic. He recently reported on professional poker players at Maryland Live. His piece is titled, "Where Card Sharks Come to Feed." David, thank you for joining us.

SAMUELSThank you so much.

NNAMDIColson Whitehead is a novelist. He's author of several books. His latest work of non-fiction chronicles his entry into the 2011 World Series of Poker. It's titled "The Noble Hustle: Poker, Beef Jerky, and Death." Colson, thank you for joining us.

WHITEHEADUntil next time. Thanks.

NNAMDIAnd Greg Merson is a professional poker player and winner of the 2012 World Series of Poker. Greg, thank you for joining us.

MERSONThanks for having me on.

NNAMDIWe're going to take a short break. When we come back, gambling addiction, may be coming soon to a neighborhood near you. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.

NNAMDIWelcome back. We've been discussing what makes a good poker player. We turn now to look at the dangers of gambling, exploring how poker and other games can lead to addiction. You can call us at 800-433-8850. Have you or someone you know suffered from gambling addiction? What did it take for you to realize that person or you had an addiction and managed to stop? 800-433-8850. You can send email to kojo@wamu.org.

NNAMDIJoining us now by phone from Baltimore is Michael Rosen. He's a network development and help line coordinator for the Maryland Center of Excellence of Problem Gambling. Michael Rosen, thank you for joining us.

MR. MICHAEL ROSENWell, thank you for having me. Good afternoon.

NNAMDIMichael, many people enjoy poker or may regularly gamble. How do you identify whether a person has developed an addiction?

ROSENWell, it's just like any other addiction. It basically -- when you reach over -- when you cross over the line, when you become powerless and when it affects your life. When you're unable to maintain your normal life functions, it affects your family, ability to pay bills, ability to spend time with your family, it occupies your whole life. You know, gambling, only as far as crossing over to the problem gambling and the pathological sides, depending on what studies you look at, it's anywhere from 1 to 3 percent of our population. But that's still four to six million people.

NNAMDIWe discussed early in the hour, some poker players, some of them professional, win most of the time. Can you still develop an addiction if you're successful at gambling? And if so, what are the signs of addiction for the winners?

ROSENWell, I think, when you look at the pathological and the crossing over with the gambling, the pathological or problem gambler can never really win. Because when they're losing they're chasing after their losses. When they're winning, the narcissism kicks in.

ROSENAnd if they're winning they're going to bet more and more, risk more and more because they think they've developed a system, they've developed a skill and they feel they can't lose. The professional gambler, it's an altogether different thing. That's a very small population of gamblers, the professional and able to earn a living doing it.

NNAMDIAt a casino like Maryland Live, people have a lot of gambling options. They can play roulette, black jack or Texas hold 'em. But most of the space in the casino is dedicated to slots. Can different types of gambling lead to different kinds of addiction?

ROSENYes. Basically, if you look at gamblers overall, you've got the escaped gambler and the actual gambler. If you go into a casino and you see there's so many slot machines because people can play the slots and have no conception whatsoever about odds, do not need any skill. All they need to do is wager their money, push the button and things are a lot different. When I started gambling -- because I'm a recovering pathological gambler -- you had to pull handles. Now, you press buttons.

ROSENAnd everything is engineered so you almost win. You might go to a penny machine and you might bet 40 units. And instead of the old days where you had a single line of bars across or 7s across, you got all sorts of permutations and combinations where you can win 30 and the bells go off and it's all celebratory. In essence, you've lost 10. But you almost won, as opposed to losing. And what you find, if you go into the casinos, the escape gambler is a completely different person then the action gambler, or the person that's at the crap table or the poker table.

NNAMDIWhat did it take for you to realize that you had a problem, Michael?

ROSENWell, I go back now to the -- I started gambling when I was 10 years old, in the '50s. And I actually played hold 'em in the early '60s, before anyone, you know, paid any attention to hold 'em. And in the late '70s, in Vegas, I got into a poker game. Your previous guests were talking about the skill set. And the professional wants to get in the game knowing that he's better than the other people. I always thought I was a fantastic poker player.

ROSENAnd I guess it was either 1979 or 1980 -- because I stopped gambling in '81. I got into a poker game with three or four men that had played in the World Series of Poker. And, again, those days you had 30 to 40 people only. I mean, I was so over my head, and it almost felt as if they knew every single card that I had. What brought me to the fact -- I'm going into the G.A. rooms and helping myself -- is that I was in jeopardy of losing my job because of all the time I was spending gambling, losing my wife, children weren't talking to me. It completely dominated by life. No different than alcohol or drugs.

NNAMDIIn your research, Michael Rosen, have you found that certain demographics are more vulnerable to gambling addiction?

ROSENYeah, the basic, up until I would say in the last decade, gamblers were primarily male Caucasians. That has completely shifted. There are still more male gamblers than female. There are certainly far more Caucasians than African Americans, but the two categories that are growing the fastest percentage-wise -- not in numbers, but percentage-wise, are our seniors and African Americans. Tremendous increase. And seniors -- and those are the people mostly that you'll see at the slot machines. The casino is a safe place to go.

ROSENThey recognize you, "Mrs. Smith, it's so good to see you." The seniors like their particular machine. And a matter of fact even some casinos, if a senior will leave their machine to go to the restroom, they'll put an out-of-order sign on the machine because that senior feels that machine is due to come out.

NNAMDITournaments like the World Series of Poker put a form of gambling on television. How do you think these kinds of well, glamorous portrayals of gambling affect those people who might be prone to addiction?

ROSENIt's tantalizing. It's absolutely tantalizing. There are surveys, too, Kojo, that show that if you build a casino -- remember the baseball movie years ago, "If you build it, they will come." If you build a casino in a 50-mile radius you'll increase the probability of people becoming compulsive and problem gamblers by about 90 percent. So take Baltimore, for an example -- or Maryland, rather. Before they built one casino there was a study done that showed that in Maryland there were about 3.4 percent of the population were either problem or pathological gamblers.

ROSENThat's 154,000 people. So that 3.4 percent, we don't know it for sure, but there are studies that have shown that if you build a casino within a 50-mile radius that 3 percent can end up being 4.5 percent. Or the -- that increase of 90 percent probability.

NNAMDIWhat kind of funding do states provide for help and research focused on gambling addiction? And how do funding levels in a state that doesn't have casinos compare to one that does?

ROSENAll right. And there is a great difference from state to state. Here in Maryland what happened, part of the legislation, the casinos, the active -- the four active casinos -- and the same will apply to the two new casinos -- they put into a fund $425 per slot machine per year. And $500 per table game per year into a fund. That's fund now, approximate, it's close to $5 million. But that amount of money just doesn't compare in the advertising budgets, you know, of the casinos.

ROSENAnd we, at the Center of Excellence for Problem Gambling, we are not for or against gambling. Our whole purpose is to educate people the dangers of gambling. We are training therapists that have normally been treating alcoholics and drug addicts how to deal with gamblers. We do surveys. We have a 24-hour-a-day helpline for people that need guidance, as to their gambling problems.

NNAMDIOn a slot machine, a player may notice a small sign warning of gambling addiction and providing a phone number for a problem gambling hotline. When would someone with a gambling addiction look at that number and decide to give it a call?

ROSENUsually when they hit bottom or get close to bottom. And the sad part about is with alcoholism and drugs, people have various bottoms of when they look for help. With the gambler, and because they're constantly chasing their losses, that bottom usually comes very, very late. As a matter of fact, there's a fact that people don't realize. The highest suicide attempt rate of any addiction, that's alcohol, drugs, sex, food, the highest suicide attempt rate of any addiction is gambling.

NNAMDIAnd that's often because the gambler has lost all of their material possessions usually by that time.

ROSENThat's exactly right. And the percentage of -- depending on what surveys you look at, anywhere from 16 to 22 percent of pathological gamblers will attempt -- not necessarily succeed -- but will attempt suicide, which is mind blowing. And the second highest is alcohol, which is about 9 percent.

NNAMDIMichael Rosen is a network development and helpline coordinator for the Maryland Center of Excellence on Problem Gambling. Thank you so much for joining us.

ROSENOh, thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

NNAMDI"The Kojo Nnamdi Show" is produced by Michael Martinez, Ingalisa Schrobsdorff, Tayla Burney, Kathy Goldgeier, Elizabeth Weinstein, and Stephanie Stokes. Brendan Sweeney is the managing producer. Our engineer, lucky Tobey Schreiner. Natalie Yuravlivker is on the phones. Thank you all for listening. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.