[Congressman Billybob]

There is a central dishonesty in this (and many other) articles. They claim that he has "lost $6 to $8 million dollars." Anyone who has ever played penny ante poker, as I do every Tuesday, knows what is wrong with this assertion.

Bill Bennett is not a member of the House of Saud. He is not Bill Gates or Warren Buffet. He could not lose that kind of money and not blink. The truth is obvious -- he did not LOSE that much money, he only GAMBLED that much money. Here's the proof of that:

I play in a game where the maximum bet (on the last card) is $1, and the maximum number of raises is three. We play split the pot games, so most players stay in. The average pot is about $40. In the course of an evening, we play 90+ hands, and seldom do any players either win or lose more than $100.

This is the important point. In the course of an evening, every player puts into the pot -- actually gambles, as it were -- about $1,000. So if you use that TOTAL figure, rather than net losses (or gains), all of us are "gambling" more than $50,000 a year -- and none of us could afford to lose that kind of money in a year. But that has NOTHING to do with our total losses (or gains).

I feel 99.9% confident that the reporting on Bill Bennett's "gambling" is making the exact same, perhaps deliberate, error. The cited figure cannot be his total losses. It is, intead, his total money put at risk -- which has no connection to his total losses.

Congressman Billybob

Latest column, now up FR, "The Knight of Draper's Liquor Store."

[danelectro]

In citing the "$8 million" figure, you are buying into a factual lie that is easily exposed. See my post #32 on this thread. As the saying goes, "Do not believe everything that you read," which is the new motto of the New York Times.

from the original article.

Bennett likes to be discreet. "He'll usually call a host and let us know when he's coming," says one source. "We can limo him in. He prefers the high-limit room, where he's less likely to be seen and where he can play the $500-a-pull slots. He usually plays very late at night or early in the morning--usually between midnight and 6 a.m." The documents show that in one two-month period, Bennett wired more than $1.4 million to cover losses. His desire for privacy is evident in his customer profile at one casino, which lists as his residence the address for Empower.org (the Web site of Empower America, the non-profit group Bennett co-chairs). Typed across the form are the words: "NO CONTACT AT RES OR BIZ!!!"

the article clearly talks about losses, not money put into play. and the game he plays is slots, which, over any significant duration of time will leave a gambler much poorer than when he started.