Online Poker Drove Student to Rob Bank

Found this in the news.  Personally I don't think the kid is very bright and deseves what he gets.  Starts robbing banks when 5k in debt, good idea.

By Matt Assad, The Morning Call


ALLENTOWN, Pa. — Somewhere in a hectic schedule that included being president of his Lehigh University sophomore class, playing second-chair cello in the university orchestra and working at the chaplain's office, Greg Hogan developed a secret habit.

For 14 months the polite, energetic finance and accounting double major from an affluent Ohio suburb used online poker to blow off steam.
But the hobby quickly became an addiction that led Hogan to lose about $5,000.

It was that addiction that led him last week into a Wachovia bank in Allentown, where he handed a teller a note and calmly walked out with $2,871 that wasn't his, says his lawyer, John J. Waldron.

Allentown police said Hogan confessed to the robbery.

Now the 19-year-old son of a Baptist minister faces up to 20 years in prison on bank robbery charges, and his lawyer says the nationwide poker craze is partly to blame.

"This is one of the nicest kids I've ever met, but his gambling addiction led him to make a terrible, terrible mistake," Waldron said. "There's so much good in this kid. It easily outweighs this one bad mistake."

District Judge Carl L. Balliet will get a chance to consider that Jan. 31, when Hogan has a preliminary hearing on felony charges of robbery, theft and receiving stolen property.

According to Allentown police, Hogan went into the bank Friday, handed the teller a note saying he had a gun and walked out with the money. He hopped into a waiting sport utility vehicle and rode away with two members of his fraternity.

The two men in the vehicle with Hogan said he told them he was cashing a check, and both told police they knew nothing of Hogan's plans. Neither has been charged and both declined to comment Tuesday, as did the bank teller.

A witness wrote down the SUV's plate number and police arrested Hogan at his fraternity house.

The arrest shocked Hogan's classmates.

"There are some students here that you just wouldn't be surprised to see arrested," said Pat Thornton, one of Hogan's friends. "But Greg wasn't one of them. Greg's just a friendly, energetic guy. You'd have trouble finding anyone who didn't like him."

At Lehigh, students liked him enough to elect him sophomore class president. He showed enough skill on the cello to be named second chair and he worked part time in the university chaplain's office, Waldron said.

Hogan is a graduate of a private high school in Shaker Heights, a suburb of Cleveland. His father, Gregory Sr., is a minister at the First Baptist Church of Barberton, Ohio, and his mother, Karen, holds a doctorate in nursing.

Hogan's parents and grandparents met with Waldron for 90 minutes Sunday and talked about the addiction Hogan had been keeping a secret.

Waldron said he had hired a forensic psychologist to evaluate Hogan.

"That's the million-dollar question," Waldron said. "Why would such a good kid with so much promise do this? We know he had a gambling addiction, but why didn't he seek other options? That has everyone scratching their heads."

William N. Thompson, professor of public policy at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, isn't among them. Thompson said the poker craze had arrived and Hogan was another of its victims.

What used to be played by middle-age men in smoky backrooms is being played by college and high school students.

If players can't find a live game, online poker is a mouse click away, and they need only a computer and a credit card whose credit limit hasn't been maxed out.

"It's everywhere and now it's even on the Internet, where there is almost no controls," Thompson said. "You can expect it to get worse, and you can expect to see more and more college students fall into it."

In all honesty, to lose 5000$ playing online poker, he mustve been playing way over his head.  I cant imagine he would lose that much playing nl 100 or lower? And if he was playing nl 200 even, thats a lot of buyins lost.  He must have done the spiral.  Lost at a low limit, and tried to make it up in a higher limit...moving up and up in limits until his card was maxed out.  I feel for the kid, but robbing a bank is no way to get out of debt.   Cant really blame online poker for this.  It is all about self control in your loses. 

Cant really blame online poker for this.  It is all about self control in your loses. 

You can be pretty shure that the moralists are going to stick it on the poker room. Thats how it always is, the masses are always going to come up short to a few idiots that also happen to scream the most.

Agreed. People will love the oppotunity to jump all over this in their sad attempt to shut down online gaming and blame all of society's faults on it.

Dude, you can blow 5k very very easily on a $1/2, $2/4 table over a few months... I have done that much and more over a month. I have won double that on other months... It all depends.

But the fact that he let himself get in that deep without telling anybody is the big problem!

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