Community Cards: Poker and the Boy Scouts

Poker in Popular Culture

Topics: Community Cards, Poker in Popular Culture

Last week much of the poker world’s attention was taken up by that House hearing in which one of the subcommittees for the Committee on Energy and Commerce pondered “Internet Gaming: Is There a Safe Bet?” While the hearing was nominally about online gambling, generally speaking, much of the talk was more specifically about poker and whether or not the U.S. is ready to pass legislation to allow for licensed and regulated online poker.

Among those making opening statements at the hearing was Representative Joe Barton (R-TX). Back in June, Barton proposed a House bill (H.R. 2366) that would allow for the licensing, regulating, and taxing of online poker in the U.S. As he did then, Barton last week again evoked poker’s significance to American history and culture when addressing the issue.

“Poker is the all-American game,” Barton began. “President Richard Nixon financed his first Congressional campaign partially with poker winnings from World War II. Our current president, President Obama, is reputed to be a very good poker player. I learned to play poker, believe it or not, in the Boy Scouts. So if you learn something in the Boy Scouts, it's got to be a good thing, right?”

The stories of Nixon and Obama’s poker playing are both fairly well known, especially that of “Tricky Dick” reportedly taking $6,000 off his fellow Naval officers during a couple of months in the Pacific, then using that money to help fund his first successful Congressional campaign in 1946. But Barton’s story of learning the game in the Boy Scouts was probably new to many.

Barton’s having learned poker as a scout is not unique. Many who have participated in the Boy Scouts of America learned how to play card games, including poker, along with the many other activities that form part of the scouting experience.

Among professional players, Andy Bloch has noted in interviews how he first learned to play poker as a Boy Scout. WSOP Circuit regular and ring winner at the 2007 WSOP Circuit Tunica event Robert Castoire has likewise noted that he first learned the game in the Boy Scouts.

Indeed, many who learned how to build a fire, pitch a tent, and other lessons for life in the Boy Scouts similarly found themselves learning to bet their big hands, not to chase inside straights, and that accurately anticipating an opponent’s move is another way to apply the Boy Scouts’ motto to “Be Prepared.”

As it happens, poker and card playing form part of the story of the origins of the Boy Scouts of America.

William D. Boyce, a newspaper publisher from Chicago, first founded the BSA in 1910. Boyce was himself an avid poker player, and in fact his wife, Mary Jane, was said to be a good player, too. A highly successful entrepreneur -- the 51-year-old Boyce was already a multi-millionaire when he started the BSA -- some have even speculated that Boyce’s financial well-being might have been significantly bolstered by his poker playing, though no evidence exists to support such a conjecture.

In fact, the very first edition of the Boy Scouts Handbook published in 1911 does contain a reference to card playing, though there the activity is presented in a somewhat negative light.

The reference appears amid a sequence of stories and essays about American wars, politics, presidents, government, the military, and other matters falling under the heading of the chapter’s title, “Patriotism and Citizenship.”

Among the stories told by the chapter’s author, Waldo Sherman, was that of the War of 1812 between the U.S. and the British. Interestingly, rather than provide an account of the war itself, Sherman focused instead on the story of a 10-year-old boy, David Glasgow Farragut.

Farragut would go on to make a name fighting for the Union in the Civil War, but he was just a boy in 1812. Nonetheless, when his father (a naval officer) was sent to New Orleans to help fight off the Brits, young David came along to serve as a cabin-boy. Sherman shared some of Farragut’s memories of the trip.

“I had some qualities that I thought made a man of me,” said Farragut. “I could swear like an old salt, could drink as stiff a glass of grog as if I had doubled Cape Horn, and could smoke like a locomotive. I was great at cards, and was fond of gambling in every shape.”

However, David’s father was less than pleased with his son’s precocity, and thus following dinner one night confronted him with a question: “David, what do you mean to be?”

David’s answer was that he wished to be like his father and “follow the sea” as a navy man. But his father objected, telling the boy “you will have to change your whole course of life if you ever become a man.”

Young David understood the implication of his father’s words, and from that point made a resolution. “I’ll change my life, and I will change it myself” he decided. “I will never utter another oath, never drink another drop of intoxicating liquor, (and) never gamble.” Telling the story years later, Farragut was able to proclaim that he had “kept these three vows to this hour.”

The implication, of course, is that by setting aside the card-playing -- a vice here associated with drinking, swearing, and other activities to be avoided by civic-minded citizens -- Farragut did successfully grow into the sort of man that boys reading his story might well take as a model to follow.

As an organization designed to build character, foster citizenship, and improve physical fitness (among other goals), the Boy Scouts of America has never officially included poker as a scheduled activity. Even if over the years it has been proven time and time again that a game of cards is an inviting option when sitting around a campfire.

Thus there is no BSA merit badge for poker. Except, of course, for the spoof badge created by the same folks who came up with merit badges for making popcorn, snoring, belching, and outhouse tipping.

That said, the idea of there ever being a real poker merit badge perhaps became marginally less far-fetched last month when the BSA announced the creation of a new merit badge for chess. Among the requirements for earning the badge, scouts must learn the rules and scorekeeping, chess notation, play in a tournament, organize a competition, and teach someone else how to play chess.

Who knows? Perhaps these stories of Boy Scouts learning poker might become even more common, especially if the decision is made to create actual poker merit badges.

After which point, the scouts could then play for them.