Community Cards: Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man Plays Poker

Poker in Popular Culture

Topics: Celebrities in Poker, Community Cards

“With great power comes great responsibility.” 

Such is the lesson young Peter Parker learns from his uncle Ben in the old Marvel Comics Spider-Man series shortly after Peter gains super powers from a radioactive spider bite.  His uncle’s death -- which his nephew believes he could have prevented -- reaffirms the message for Peter, inspiring him to use his ability to cling to surfaces, sling webs, and employ his ESP-like “spider-sense” to fight crime.

When it comes to poker, the adage could have a few different applications.  For example, having the big stack at the table, or simply being a winning player, increases one’s “power” insofar as it gives one more options within a given game or allows one greater freedom to choose different games/stakes.

But being a winner at poker also makes one increasingly conspicuous.  And, in some cases, a greater target for others, adding to one’s burden or “responsibility” going forward. 

That’s a lesson seemingly contained in the story of a lawsuit recently filed against Tobey Maguire, one he likely never would have faced if not for the actor’s apparent success at the poker table.

While Maguire has a number of well-received performances to his credit -- his turn as jockey Red Pollard in 2003’s Seabiscuit among the most lauded -- he’s best known for having starred as the titular character in the Spider-Man trilogy of blockbusters (2002, 2004, 2007).  Each installment of the series scored hugely at the box office, with audiences repeatedly coming back for more of Maguire as the nerdy student-turned-superhero.

The poker world, however, has long been aware of Maguire’s interest in -- and talent for -- our favorite game, where he’s had a few notable performances as well.  Maguire has more than $200,000 in career tourney winnings, including three cashes at the WSOP, the most recent a 292nd-place finish at the 2007 Main Event. 

Maguire has also for some time been known as a regular participant in those celebrity-filled, Hollywood home games, where according to some he’s been a big winner.  Indeed, on an episode of “Poker After Dark” that aired during the summer of 2007, Phil Hellmuth claimed Maguire had taken as much as $10 million from the games.

Among Maguire’s opponents in those games was the businessman Bradley Ruderman, a Beverly Hills hedge fund manager who in early 2010 was found to have cheated investors out of more than $25 million in what has been described as a Ponzi scheme.  Having pleaded guilty to wire fraud, investment-adviser fraud, and failure to file taxes, Ruderman is presently serving a 10-plus year sentence in federal prison and has been ordered to pay $27.5 million in restitution to his victims.

An FBI investigation revealed Ruderman had spent considerable amounts of his investors’ money on himself, with at least some likely funding his poker playing.  The lawsuit against Maguire is being filed by a court-appointed trustee charged with the task of recovering investors’ money, and demands that Maguire pay more than $300,000 he allegedly won from Ruderman in what the filing describes as “the high stakes, clandestine poker games.”

In fact, more than a dozen who played against Ruderman from 2006-2009 were targeted by similar lawsuits, among them the director Nick Cassavetes, record label owner Cody Leibel, and actor-comedian Gabe Kaplan.  Others said to have played in the games who were not sued include Rounders star Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, and Leonardo DiCaprio.  More recently, New York Yankee Alex Rodriguez was alleged to have participated in the Hollywood games, too, although that story has been disputed.

As Kaplan explained to National Public Radio in late June, “the suit only involves people who won money in the games.”  Kaplan defended the games as legal, falling under the guidelines allowed for private poker games in California.  Even so, last week it was reported that Kaplan actually went ahead and settled out of court with the litigants for $27,900, a little less than half what they claimed he’d won from Ruderman.

The former Welcome Back, Kotter star and longtime poker player explained to NPR how Ruderman managed to persuade some players to invest in his fraudulent fund.  “I mean he was a mini-Madoff,” said Kaplan, alluding to the infamous Bernie Madoff, engineer of the multi-billion dollar Ponzi scheme.  Kaplan also noted -- perhaps with tongue partly in cheek -- that while Ruderman wasn’t such a good player, he was capable of bluffing.

Like Kaplan, Maguire has denied participating in illegal games.  Maguire’s attorney has additionally stated that the Spider-Man star only won $187,000 from Ruderman, which apparently was only a little more than the $168,500 he lost to the businessman in the games.  The case is scheduled to go to trial in late January 2012.

While the lawsuits are intriguing -- as is the blinkered glimpse they provide of the otherwise-hidden Hollywood games -- the way they have been reported and discussed also tells us something interesting about poker’s ambiguous standing in American culture. 

For some, particularly those with less favorable views of poker, the news that Maguire played cards for money -- in fact, for a lot of money -- seems reason enough to brand him as guilty of something untoward.  (No... not our “friendly neighborhood Spider-man!”)  The same could be said for Alex Rodriguez or other high-profile figures whose cultural “power” is thought to require of them additional “responsibility” not to gamble and/or associate themselves with America’s signature card game. 

I suppose such “heroes” of popular culture are necessarily going to be held to different standards than the rest of us.  It is a shame, though, to see poker so readily spoken of as though it was something radioactive.