Viewing the History of American Identity Through the Lens of Poker

Luck of the Draw: American Societal Development

• Lukacs “Poker and American Character”
• Spanier “Breakfast in Vegas”

The personality of America as a whole is one that has somewhat changed over the last half century, but before that, it was much the same. The ambition and gall to start an entirely new nation, then to expand the country westward, and eventually to turn the young nation into a global super power is something that was seen all the way up until recently when a sense of entitlement has seemed to become prevalent.

Much like success in America, success in poker is more mental and psychological than anything. In Lukacs’ “Poker and American Character” and David Spanier’s “Breakfast in Vegas”, there are many aspects of poker and the surrounding aspects of the game, such as gambling as a whole and a capitalistic society, that exemplify why this game is truly an analogy of the aggregate personality of America as a nation.

Defecting from the global power that was England in the 18th century to form a new nation, independent of any British rule was definitely a gamble.

During the Revolutionary War, particularly at the battle of Pigeon Forge, the chips for the American’s were down, with rags on their feet or nothing at all, we went all in with the little we had and started to turn the war around. Until after World War II, America remain the underdog, the small blind, if you will. What’s interesting about American culture is how much we have adopted poker lingo and strategy into many other aspects of life, most notably in business.

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When negotiating a contract, you don’t want to show the other side your “hand” and in order to get them to cave to your demands or “fold”, you up the bet and when they bet big, you call their bluff. Post WWII America is where you start to see the decline in self reliance as Lukacs talks about, thus bringing on a larger welfare state and other aspects of a “progressive” society. Another interesting aspect of Post WWII America is the dynamic that for knowledge, we seem to defer to academia that deals more in ideals rather than people who have real life experience and deal in reality, and not what should or could be, as modern academia seems to do. The opponent of academia that wants to work in conjunction with government to regulate and tax any and everything they can get their figurative hands on, is exemplified in that of modern Las Vegas.

Many vices are legal here and government regulation seems to have taken a back seat and let the private sector do its capitalist duty, and gain profit. David Spanier details this obscene amount of money that a poker table pulls in over a year in “Breakfast in Vegas”. By his estimation, each table would bring in over a quarter of a million dollars annually, with the bigger casinos having dozens of tables operating around the clock. What fuels this extremely lucrative line of business is definitely another aspect of the American attitude of today. This mindset of making it rich overnight is a truly American concept, for the tourists that flood Vegas, many of them planning to gamble for that reason.

Even if it is “just for a vacation” they almost surely all know of the great cost gambling for fun could cause them. The other interesting aspect of this cost of vacationing in Vegas is also indicative of the diversity of the American culture and what great wealth it possesses. A $50,000 loss at the poker tables may be small fries to a multi millionaire, and a years salary to a middle class individual, yet they all have their place in Vegas, and all seem to be looking for that very same thrill. Spanier talks about how the varying degrees of wealth can intersect when he speaks about how he got caught in the middle of some high rollers when he was playing a smaller stakes game, his losses became large because he wasn’t ready for the step up that the wealthier competition didn’t bat an eyelash at. Going back to the Lukacs article, he compares another game, chess, to the American culture and comes to the conclusion it fits more of the Russian personality, and wishes the Russian people luck with the game, in a larger metaphorical sense. He goes on to expound on the point that the game is based on a methodical, dogmatic frame of mind and subsequent strategy that is very fitting of a nation that embraced Marxism. In contrast, America’s game of poker is one that seems