Nick Leeson is the biggest gambler in history. Over the next few months, he’ll be writing about everything from the nature of risk, gambling psychology, his new passion for poker and maybe even the state of the Far-Eastern financial market.
Rogue trader’, ‘disgraced bond trader’, ‘that tosser from Barings’. These are all descriptions of me that I’ve heard this week and every week for the last four and a half years. Add to that the formal presentation of an injunction for £100m – yes, £100m – at Heathrow Airport on my return from Singapore and a lien over 50 per cent of my earnings, and you get the picture that the future wasn’t exactly looking very bright. There’s no incentive to earning money only to have to give it all away, so I needed to think of other ways of getting by. Entering and winning the lottery was a purely romantic notion, so I had to look around for something that offered me better odds.
I got hooked on Internet poker. The only type of poker I’d tried before was strip poker, but these games over the Internet really gripped my imagination. They gripped what I had in my wallet for a while too, but thankfully I now have some control over it. I’ve played on the casino sites that are ten-a-penny on the Internet: you change your money, place your bets against a machine and can’t help but feel mugged by the time you leave. I logged into one, put £200 in my account and lost it in about three minutes fl at – it was like having your pockets picked. Anyone wondering how I managed to lose so much money at Barings should wonder no more. And believe this: that £200 hurt me more than the £50m I lost in one day during my time in Singapore.
Most people’s first experience of poker is in a card room, with a lot then diversifying into online games. I have to say I came in the opposite direction. The anonymity of the Internet is refreshing – if you play the hands sensibly and don’t start chasing cards, you can make good money. Nearly, if not all, of the psychological and emotional factors surrounding the live game are removed by the Internet. You don’t have to face some buffoon with a smirk on his face who’s trying to lure you into something, even less the sweat-streaked worrier who’s starting to kick up a stink. You play in the privacy and comfort of your own home with other like-minded souls, differentiated only by their user name and country of origin. To the winner the spoils, to the loser the credit card bills.
I’ve heard tales of psychological studies into online poker concerning the speed of the mouse clicks. But that’s complete rubbish, because connection speeds are different the world over. I really do believe it’s an even playing field. Some card room poker players find it difficult to adapt to the Internet; you always have to expect the unexpected. You’ll find players waiting for the river or last card, needing one card that has a one in 13 chance of occurring and going with the betting. It wouldn’t happen in a real card game, but it most certainly does on the Internet.
You don’t have to be the finished article before you play, as the Internet is a good place to learn. You don’t even have to play for money, as most of the major sites offer ‘play for free’ tables, although with these the play can be very different than if you’re playing for real cash. The most widely played games are Texas Hold ‘Em and Seven Card Stud, the former being the format used for most card room tournaments. Some of the better sites even offer a tuition programme with a poker professional. What I love about it is that you’re playing people, not a computer. You’re backing your ability against seven or eight other players, and that’s just the sort of challenge a cock-sure gambler like me loves!
I’ve got so into online poker that I’m now involved with an Internet poker site called Celebpoker.com. They differentiate themselves from the rest of the market by providing well-known poker-playing celebrities (like me!) for you to play against. The silly people have actually put up some money for me to play with. The last time anybody did that… well, we all know what happened, so they could be on the bankruptcy fast track! But I’m making sure I keep hold of my ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card this time.
There are many celebrities with good poker pedigrees to play against on the site: snooker’s Mark Williams, Stephen Hendry and the last Poker Million winner himself – Jimmy White. You can even play against me, the world’s biggest/worst/most stupid/most unlucky gambler (*delete as applicable). I think I’m a better poker player than futures trader, but the jury’s still out on that one. If you fancy playing me, why not log on? Rumours of Peter Baring booking me up for a game are wrong – he couldn’t afford the entry!
