City Pages analyzes the poker games that the two major candidates for the American presidency like to play, and how it symbolizes their politics.

An interview in The New Yorker three years ago revealed that McCain is an avid gambler:

Wes Gullett, a close friend who worked for McCain for years, told me that they used to play craps in Las Vegas in fourteen-hour stints, standing at the tables from 10 a.m. to midnight. “Craps is addictive,” McCain remarked, and he headed for the fifteen-dollar-minimum-bet tables. “This is a very, very superstitious game,” he said. When his turn came to throw the dice, he picked them up and blew on them first.

This piece in CNN describes Obama’s long-running poker games:

Obama was a regular at the low-stakes games — sometimes stud poker, sometimes draw — designed to break up the tedium of long legislative sessions. Poker, beer and cigars were staples; Democrats and Republicans, lawmakers and even the lobbyists who Obama sometimes rails against dealt the cards and placed their bets.

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