Off Topic: Underage online gambling, and privacy concerns
 

Maybe the HMT crew can give me some input on how you feel about this topic.

My fiancee's brother (he is 16) is a poker player. He started a couple years ago with his friends, and now he plays on the internet quite a bit. His parents are pretty wealthy and are totally self-made... they're concerned that his poker-playing will cause problems in his life when he's old enough to actually get into casinos. He's already won about $2000 in real money and they don't want him to get any deeper. They told him he couldn't play online poker any more. He agreed, but then he got caught still playing online. I'm sort of the family computer guy and while they had taken away his laptop for a week they had me install some monitoring software on the computer. It runs hidden, and keeps a log of what web sites you visit, all the emails you get, contents of the emails, things you type in chat rooms/ims, etc. EVERYTHING. Then it emails any email address you want with an activity report so it's totally stealth.

He kept doing the poker thing, and his parents busted him, and he was PISSED. He knew the software was being installed but he didn't know it monitored email and all that crap. What do you guys think? Was the monitoring software justified in this case? And what do you think about getting hooked on poker at a young age?

Re:Off Topic: Underage online gambling, and privacy concerns
 

If he's not losing money, work it out where you get half the earnings for not reporting it to the parents.

He's 16, it's the coolest thing (in his mind) that he could do, and if he's good at it, why not. Cut him off at 10g and make him join the poker world championship.

Re:Off Topic: Underage online gambling, and privacy concerns
 

Better Poker Than Crack, -----s, and gangs :-\

Re:Off Topic: Underage online gambling, and privacy concerns
 

find him a new hobby.
do you think its just a phase hes going through. does he have anything else to do?

If it were me.....
I mess with my car and other peoples. I make very little money at it, but I have alot better rewards...so if you took that away from me, yeah I would be pissed. I have nothing else to do. It would be like taking everything away from me. then if you started to track my ----, you would be invading me and that would really piss me off.

look at it like that....

cars and racing can be very addicting, and costly, and can cause people problems. my uncle got a divorce because he wouldnt give up racing....

its his life. give him something else to be interested in.

Re:Off Topic: Underage online gambling, and privacy concerns
 

man if i were his dad id be real observant of the situation, it sounds like an obsession, but there are many worse things to be obsessed with, as long he keeps winning that is.

Re:Off Topic: Underage online gambling, and privacy concerns
 

id be pissed if i got in trouble for playing poker online and my parents monitored my sites I went to(although id understand) but my email too? I dont think thats right.

Re:Off Topic: Underage online gambling, and privacy concerns
 

I think its justifiable. If the kid was just playing for free, I'd say it was fine. But jeez :-\

Re:Off Topic: Underage online gambling, and privacy concerns
 

gambling is such a horrible ------- habit. obsessive gamblers are worse than ------- crackfiends. trust me, i live in vegas... so i know this. people come here and waste thier entire life savings, and then borrow money under false pretenses from their friends/family and waste that too. there are so many ------- homeless bums in this city due to the fact that they are obsessive compulsive gamblers.

cut that ---- off now. it is good that he is winning. however, if he keeps winning he is going to start thinking that he is untouchable, cannot lose, and has a "system" to beat the house. then the stakes will go up. not only will he lose everything that he won, he will lose a whole lot more and end up in some serious debt.

personally, i would rather have a kid that is addicted to crack than one that is addicted to gambling.

good luck

Re:Off Topic: Underage online gambling, and privacy concerns
 

He used to skateboard, then he messed up his knees. That's about the time he got into poker. He also collects comic books; he's down at the local shop once every two weeks buying 10 copies of this and that. I think he's got a pretty valuable collection, but i'm not sure.

We're separated by about 10 years but I still think of him like one of my buds. He's a really cool kid. I feel bad for the whole situation.

Re:Off Topic: Underage online gambling, and privacy concerns
 

Look for a cheap Honda for him, and tell him you'll help him turbocharge it. Have him use his money for good purposes.