Harvard Law professor Charles Nesson and a handful of law students have formed a poker club to supposedly aid in legal training. Nesson also markets poker software to younger kids to help with math skills.
According to The New York Times, Nesson uses his Global Poker Strategic Thinking Society to produce sharper lawyers and more skilled negotiators. Harvard has opened seven college poker societies.
Valerie Lorenz, founder of the Forensic Center on Compulsive Gambling, isn't playing along.
“We don’t teach kids how to drink in order to learn about alcoholism," she said. "But we’re teaching kids how to gamble in order to learn odds and probabilities or cognitive skills? Teach them how to play chess.”
Francis Boyle, a law professor at the University of Illinois, said Nesson's plan has nothing to do with teaching analytical skills.
“It has to do with Charlie Nesson lining his own pocket," he said, "by addicting people to gambling."
