Poker Thobda

Stephen Dubner asks an interesting question about why there's not enough desis on Poker Tables on the Freakonomics blog. My guess is it's a bit of all the reasons given in the comments by the guests & the readers. But my best guess is something like this:

Gambling at the pro level is not worth the risk for first generation immigrants from India. A large majority of Indian diaspora (I love that word) have come here by the rules. The last I heard, gambling was illegal, and has a social stigma, back home. It's just not worth it. There's just too much they have invested in their lives from the money based on their professional skills that they cannot risk losing it for the probability of making money. All they know about gambling is that Amitabh Bachchan was 'The Great Gambler'. (They ARE film watching engineering nerds after all)

Second generation immigrants (aka ABCDs) do not have such issues of battling the perception back home, since this is their home. Yet, they are still not at a critical mass level where you can see them play at the level that others play at. But it will start. Quite soon.

There's another possibility. Somewhat related, but on a tangent. The story of the normal first generation Indian immigrant really doesn't bleed. And if it bleeds, it leads. There might be a whole bunch of Indians playing there for all I know, but their story is not one of the everlasting hope that TV producers love. "Yeah, you know, I came on an F1 visa and went to Stanford, where all I could think of was how the dollar was worth 49 rupees. All I could afford was rice and beans." Yeah, right. Like that's going to get more people watch a TV show in the hope that their lives would turn.