Don't glamorize gambling

I want to submit my opinions on the article "Poker passion pays off for Oak Park man" (Aug. 9).

Let me start off by saying that there was nothing funnier that I have read in The Acorn than hearing about the spoiled rotten kid whose parents support a gambling addiction.

I went to Oak Park High. Two of my teachers were Gamblers Anonymous leaders and counselors. Why advocate such addiction and put it on a front page as a beautiful, successful thing?

Honestly, everybody else got a kick out of this article. What good parenting must you have in order for the father, the socalled "financial advisor," to pay for your son's education at USC (a truly expensive school) while your son takes home a quarter of a million dollars and doesn't use that to pay for college or support his family?

Scott Freeman claims he is seeking a business degree but doesn't know if he wants to pursue it or go "travel and meet poker players around the world." This kind of mentality is grotesque, and it's not needed to encourage the majority of Oak Park teenagers who visit the Chumash Casino in Santa Barbara to escape their primary goals in hopes of winning a poker tournament.

Gambling is dangerous. It is fun at first, but playing for the amount that Scott Freeman was into is dangerous. Alex Klochek Oak Park