I wonder what Sheldon Adelson would do if — in some alternative universe — he was assigned to cover the World Series of Poker.
Imagine the billionaire casino mogul and crackpot conservative standing out on the tournament floor covering the poker action. How would he report on what’s going on? What would be written?
Based on his preposterous comments from in an utterly baffling appearance on Bloomberg TV earlier this week, Adelson is convinced that poker is a game of luck. Not a game of skill. A game of luck.
Let that sink in for a moment.
Adelson is a ruthless businessman who built a vast empire on gambling. Yet, he apparently has no actual understanding of gambling, nor the differences between games of skill and luck. Here’s what Adelson said on Bloomberg TV as reported in Business Insider.
ON POKER AS A GAME OF SKILL: “That skill base is, in my opinion, just a bunch of baloney. To get a card is not skill base. I know people say it is skill-based, but it’s just so they can categorize it in a certain segment.”
So, let’s now get back to a scenario where the doddering curmudgeon gets hired as the newest WSOP tournament reporter. Here’s an imaginary report of Mr. Adelson’s account of the action:
We’re here at the Rio in Las Vegas and the 2013 World Series of Poker.
This is the place where you see many of the luckiest poker players of all time. Lucky poker players like Phil Hellmuth, Johnny Chan, and Doyle Brunson.
Someone named Phil Ivey is starting to get really lucky, too. He got lucky nine times, so far. He’s so lucky that he hasn’t held a real job during his entire life. He’s been playing poker for twenty years. I guess he just gets lucky all the time.
Ivey sort of reminds me of another poker player I heard about. He won the WSOP Main Event three times because of luck. His name was Stu Ungar. He didn’t ever work a real job either. According to one account, Ungar raked in about $30 million over the course of his life playing poker. Talk about luck!
Then, there are all these young kids who play poker. They waste their time studying, learning about, and discussing hands. What idiots. Spending all that time trying to get better. Don’t they realize that nothing they do really matters?
After all, poker is a game of luck.
Here’s my take on things: Sheldon Adelson would be advised to shut up and stick to commenting on subjects he knows something about firsthand — like how to blast through $40 million dollars on a doomed presidential campaign, or repeatedly losing spiteful lawsuits, or making a fool of himself in the national media.
Sheldon Adelson has become an expert at that.