IN THIS ISSUE:
Acts of Altruism | Alumni Interview | Class Profiles

FEATURE STORY (continued) — November/December 2004



Poker player turns over chips to charity

By Scott Green

Barry Greenstein, seated at left, plays at the World Poker Open held in January in Tunica, Miss.

Barry Greenstein '75 ENG knows when to hold 'em, fold 'em, walk away and run. He doesn't count his money when he's sitting at the table. But when he does, it all goes to charity.

As a professional poker player for 30 years, Greenstein decided last year to give away all the cash he made playing poker tournaments. So far he's racked up $3 million. There's the promise of much, much more to come.

"Now there's something productive that's coming out of poker other than just making all this money," he said in a telephone interview from his Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., home.

Just two tournaments netted the 49-year-old philanthropist winnings totaling $2 million. Most prominently, this January he won the World Poker Open in Tunica, Miss. The tournament, televised nationally on the Travel Channel's "World Poker Tour," attracted 367 people to enter for $10,000 each. As the top finisher in the four-day competition, Greenstein earned $1,278,370.

His other major tournament victory in 2003 was at an eight-man, $125,000 entry, winner-take-all, Seven Card Stud event at the Hustler Casino in California. When the tournament got down to the final two players  Greenstein and magazine publisher Larry Flynt — the two agreed to a deal where Greenstein would be declared the winner but receive just $770,000, while Flynt would earn $230,000.

For Greenstein, the charity of choice is Children Inc. For $24 per month, contributors to the nonprofit organization can sponsor an underprivileged child from any of 21 countries. Greenstein used to donate less money to the charity, but a trip he and his children made to Kentucky to visit some of the children they sponsored showed him firsthand how much good his money was doing.

Greenstein's other charities include Rainbow Shelter, a short-term home for battered women and children, and Guyana Watch, which provides medical supplies to the poverty-stricken in Guyana. He also has donated to the University of Illinois Department of Mathematics.

With one major interruption, Greenstein has made his money playing poker since before high school. He grew up in a card-playing household and remembers participating in a family poker game at age 4.

Greenstein's personal traits help bolster his success. A natural whiz at math (he correctly answered every math question on the ACT and SAT), he can quickly calculate complicated probabilities in the middle of a hand of cards. The poker champion is also quiet and unemotional, skills well-suited to a poker player who must observe his opponents and mask his own reactions to his own cards. Another valuable trait is his confidence, which proves handy when it comes to making a big bluff or folding a strong hand because an opponent likely holds an even stronger one.

At age 29, Greenstein applied his analytical brain power in another way by accepting a job with Symantec, a new software company. He was such a key programmer that when he wanted to take two months off in 1984 to finish his doctoral thesis, the company told him it would fold if he left. Greenstein stayed until 1991, and today Symantec thrives.

"I played poker all my life, and I made money, but I didn't get any personal fulfillment out of that," Greenstein said. "In the past, [working at Symantec] was the one productive thing I'd felt I had done." Now, he says donating his tournament winnings to charity eclipses his previous accomplishments.

Don't worry about Greenstein's financial status, though. Although he's given much to charity, he donates his winnings only from poker tournaments. He still makes seven figures a year playing in non-tournament, or "ring," poker games, but he won't disclose exactly how much he earns.

Before he began playing tournaments for charity, he had more time for ring games  up to 12 hours a day, six days per week. His regular game is at the Hustler Casino in Gardena, Calif., just south of Los Angeles. He makes money by playing against multimillionaires who are regulars at the table, like Flynt and Los Angeles Lakers owner Jerry Buss.

The switch to playing tournaments for charity sets a great example for his kids, Greenstein said.

"I'm just kind of happy the way things are going," he said. "I feel that the charity work I'm doing has also given me some respectability. It's not like I really needed it for myself, but it's good for my children."