Poker to understand America

Poker refers, in our imagination, to the saloons of the Old West or to smoky and rather shady gambling dens. Las Vegas then immediately reminds us of a giant Disneyland full of lights, signs and slot machines.

Journalist Giuliano Malatesta tries to go beyond very well-rooted stereotypes in his "Poker in Las Vegas" (66thand2nd, 2022, pp. 144, also e-book), surprising and amusing reportage on the queen city of gambling .

A surprising reportage because the portrait of a city that is not as trivial as one would like to think emerges, because it is the last example and undisputed totem of what remains of our capitalist twentieth century. Not for nothing, not without a hint of irony, Malatesta defines Las Vegas "the last honest place in America", a place where the ethics of the most ruthless capitalism - the one according to which only the gain and defeat of each competitor - is laid bare without deceit and hypocrisy. Without any mercy for the losers.

To build his narrative itinerary, the author did nothing but immerse himself in the dreams and nightmares of this city built in the Nevada desert as a machine to give illusions to a few and eat money to almost everyone. He spent four weeks there participating in the World Series of Poker , the equivalent of our world championships. Malatesta played (with mixed results as a passionate but amateur player as he himself considers himself), poked around behind the scenes, listened to players and entrepreneurs, chatted with a number of bizarre characters to tell from the inside the colorful universe that moves around one of the most fascinating strategic games ever, a playful variant of an American dream in constant search of renewal. An American dream that in Las Vegas does not reward the lucky ones, as one would immediately think, but who knows how to be the best in a game, poker, which requires talent, intuition, psychology, skill, the ability to make decisions in a very short time and attention in grasping the strategies of the opponents even from almost imperceptible signs.

The result is a story about America of yesterday and a reportage that talks about America today, in a book that traces the events that brought us here, from the legendary deeds of the first professional poker players in Las Vegas - bettors, geniuses of math and social misfits - to get to the adventures of new phenomena from the online galaxy. Young nerds used to thinking like computers and crushing competitors as if they were always in a virtual game.