OPINION: Has the US learned nothing from the UK’s gambling woes?

OPINION: Has the US learned nothing from the UK’s gambling woes?

Article brief provided by Wired
  • Will Bedingfield, Wired
June 21, 2022 10:11 PM
  • Will Bedingfield, Wired

Greg Weber began gambling at 13, playing poker with his friends for small stakes after school. Weber, who is 32 now, and a New Jersey native, grew up in the wake of the Moneymaker effect-a boom in poker interest sparked when a 27-year-old accountant from Tennessee, Chris Moneymaker, won the 2003 World Series of Poker, taking home $2.5 million. Weber has always obsessed over sports, particularly basketball, and poker appealed to his competitive instincts; it played weekly on ESPN too. So while it was Weber’s love of sports that got him into gambling, he didn’t gamble on sports right away-that came later, at 18.

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