“I kind of wrestled with the question of whether I’m addicted to playing. I don’t think I am,” Goodkin said.
Most of the gamblers interviewed for this story declined to comment on exactly how much money they’ve made or lost online, but most said they have kept detailed logs of their bets.
A junior in Mather House who shared his net winnings on condition of anonymity said he started gambling online last December and made $4,000 within one month. He said he has profited about $7,000 total from online poker alone.
“I don’t like telling people how much money I make online because other people will think they can, too,” the junior, who is trying to quit gambling, said. “If you don’t have the bankroll to lose $1,500 then you shouldn’t do it.”
But Goodkin, who took a class at Harvard on the modeling of statistical situations, said that Harvard students generally have the upper hand in online poker.
“The average college poker player at Harvard is better than the average player online,” Goodkin said.
Many of the gamblers said that a knowledge of mathematical probability from college courses has come in handy.
“I’m not sure everyone who does online gambling are math people but many of them definitely are,” said David K. Hammer ’06, a computer science concentrator and former online gambler. “Harvard students have an advantage because they’re good at strategic thinking.”
Rudi G. Patitucci ’04 said online gambling has become much more popular since he started internet gambling as a freshman in 2001.
“The most exciting part about doing it at the beginning was that it was something that seemed pretty edgy, but by the time I got out of [Harvard] it seemed like about 60 percent of college males wanted to get into it,” he said.
Patitucci said he spent about 50 hours a week gambling online while he attended the College. He said he has scaled back to 20 hours per week in order to accommodate his job in financial services.
Wen, who said he has lost as much as $1,000 and won up to $2,000 in single sittings, plans to scale back later this month.
“I’m not going to play the week before midterms,” Wen said.