Uncle Sam Poker

I rarely bother to read any columns in Card Player other than my own except when I’m looking for material to steal. Unfortunately, in 25 years, I’ve yet to find anything that comes close to matching my standards, so I’ve pretty much given up on finding anything useful. However, the Oct. 19 issue, which featured an illustration of Uncle Sam on the cover, gave me an idea.

The drawing showed Sam holding four cards, with a somewhat angry look in his eyes, so I assume he was playing Omaha eight-or-better. The accompanying story, though, was about the drive to get the United States to legalize, regulate and tax Internet gaming. The article quoted industry estimates that legalized online poker could generate $2 billion in annual tax revenue. That’s nothing to sneeze at, but the picture of Uncle Sam gave me a much better idea. Instead of merely taxing online poker revenue, why couldn’t the government start up and run its own site and keep all the revenue?

How much would that be? Well, say we have 50 million Americans playing an average of 20 hours a week. With about 25 hands dealt an hour and a $4 average rake, that would come to…come to…well, a lot of money. Now add in the money to be made from players logging on from foreign countries, and in a year or two we’d have enough revenue to pay off our national debt, with enough left over to stake me in every event of next year’s World Series of Poker as a reward for my idea.

I even thought of a swell name for the government’s online poker site:

“Uncle Sam Poker.”

Does that sound absurd? Would we need a constitutional amendment to allow our government to run a gaming site? Wait a minute. Don’t forget we already have 46 jurisdictions in this country running lotteries — 43 states plus Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and, yes, even our very own national capital, the District of Columbia. And isn’t poker a bit more a game of skill than picking lottery numbers?

Just think: with the government dealing cards, legislators and the FBI will regard poker players as patriots instead of criminals. With slogans like, “place your bet and reduce our debt,” we could all be proud rather than ashamed of playing the game. There’ll be no further need to hide your activity from your boss or your mother-in-law.

And players wouldn’t have to worry about any funny business at a government-run site. Anyone caught using a bot would be sent to Alcatraz. And anyone found cheating or in collusion would face an even harsher penalty: a 30-day sentence playing at Big Denny’s Barstow Card Casino.

Poker has always been America’s national sport, but making it America’s government-sanctioned national sport could lead to all kinds of other positive changes in this country’s traditions. For example, Kenny Rogers’ great hold’em song, “The Gambler,” could replace “The Star Spangled Banner” as our national anthem. And our coins and currency, instead of bearing pictures of people nobody ever heard of, like Alexander Hamilton, would feature likenesses of poker icons like Wild Bill Hickok, Phil Hellmuth and Eskimo Clark.

There are so many possibilities. How about an annual contest, with the player putting in the most hours on the Uncle Sam site in a year being given a Presidential Citizens Medal? This is the second highest civilian award in the United States, given to any U.S. citizen “who has performed exemplary deeds for his or her country.” Better yet, let’s go all the way and give the winner the highest civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. This is granted to individuals who have made “especially meritorious” contributions to such things as the national interests of the United States or cultural endeavors — and playing poker on the Uncle Sam site certainly would satisfy both requirements.

This Medal of Freedom badge is in the form of a white enamel star embossed with 13 golden stars. Of course, the medal would have to be changed a bit to make it more appropriate – instead of 13 stars, just put in four aces.

The more angles I thought of for this historical proposal, the more excited I got. All I had to do now was to meet with Barack Obama and tell him about my idea. President Obama, after all, is poker-friendly. In fact, early in his term as U.S. Senator, he started a game to which he invited Democrats, Republicans and lobbyists as a way of getting to know everyone better. And once Uncle Sam Poker is launched, maybe he himself could play in tournaments as a bounty. Think how many players that would attract!

But how could I get to see the President? My first thought was to contact my sweetie’s older brother Richard, a dedicated poker player who taught Barbara to play the game when she was only four years old. Unfortunately, the match didn’t last long because in no time she was regularly taking all his school lunch money. Richard still plays, but he now lives in a hillbilly area and has to play hillbilly poker. So he’s constantly calling me with stupid questions, just like my brother Ira used to do in his “potzer poker” game. The only difference is that now, instead of Ira asking how many times Irving is allowed to cut the deck, Richard calls to ask how many times Zeke can cut.

However, I thought Richard might have a direct line to President Obama because he’s a big admirer of the President, and in the 2008 election headed up then-Senator Obama’s election campaign in his town. Then I recalled that hardly any of the hillbillies there could read, much less decipher ballot instructions, so almost nobody voted in Richard’s district.

Next I considered contacting Windy Waggy, who claims to be on intimate terms with every notable in the world, from President Obama to Hulk Hogan. But then I thought better of it for two reasons. First, I remembered that every time she pretended to be talking to President Obama on her cell phone, I spotted a blinking red light that showed it was out of battery. Second, she’s threatened to sue me if I ever mentioned her again in any of my columns (why can’t she be more like Dirty Wally, who used to pay me to write about him?).

OK, then, I could use some help to arrange a meeting with the President. Is there anybody out there who can set it up for me? Doing so would liberate poker players and help get our nation out of debt. And who knows? It might also get you one of those medals. ♠

Max Shapiro, a lifelong poker player and former newspaper reporter with several writing awards to his credit, has been writing a humor column for Card Player ever since it was launched more than 20 years ago. His early columns were collected in his book, Read ’em and Laugh.