You’re playing poker in class: you have quad aces but someone beats you with a royal flush, you’re disappointed and mad. Suddenly the bell rings and you realize you just spent the entire class period playing poker with your friends instead of paying attention to the teacher.
Students use online poker websites such as PokerNow.com and BetOnline.com. “I love to play poker with my friends and peers, I don’t just play in school though. I also play with my family, and me and my friends even meet up outside of school and play too,” a junior who wishes to remain anonymous said.
Poker is one of the most popular gambling games in the world with around 60 million people playing it worldwide, according to Global Brands Magazine. The main objective of poker is to make the best possible five-card hand using your two hole cards, which are cards that are facing down, and the five community cards. “At first, I was so confused on how to play poker. I saw my friends playing it and thought it would be super hard to learn, but my friends showed me how to play and once I got the hang of it it was actually super easy and fun,” another anonymous junior said.
Lately though, it seems students would rather play poker with their friends than do their schoolwork. Sometimes they have already completed their classwork but more often it’s that they are choosing to play poker instead of doing their work. “I admit I do play during class when I should be doing schoolwork at times or I’ll try to multitask. It’s just a really fun thing to do with my friends and I don’t have many classes with them so we play when we can,” the first anonymous junior said.
The good news for teachers is that not all students who play poker choose to play in school. For example, an anonymous senior organizes hangouts with friends in order to play a couple times a month. “I saw my cousins playing once and really wanted to learn. Once I learned how to play I found out some of my friends knew how to play also so we started getting together outside of school so we could play. It’s really fun to play with friends and it’s something social that we can do,” the second anonymous senior said.
For the students who do play in school, they have found that it can be a big distraction at times. “I’ve tried to play less in school because I realized that I need to do my school work and not procrastinate just to play poker,” the first anonymous junior said.
Just because you are in school however does not mean that you have to not play poker and have fun with your friends though. There are times like lunch or advisory when you are free that one could play during. “Me and my friends used to play during lunch but we found it was too hard to put together a game because we are constantly going to our teachers to get help with assignments or get some extra studying,” the second anonymous senior said.
