Playing for real

Now he has made a documentary highlighting the gambling scene in the North-East.

CASPAR Berry was the original bad boy of Byker Grove. When BBC1's junior Geordie soap was launched in 1988, his character Gill was the teenager heading for trouble.

Two years later, Gill was killed off and "that ended that source of income", recalls the former pupil of the Royal Grammar School in Newcastle.

He doesn't seem to have regrets that his stint in the series ended when it did. "I enjoyed it but was never happy as an actor because I liked to be in control of things and, as an actor, that's not possible," he says.

He went off to university - Cambridge, to study economics with a job in the city a possibility - and began directing short films. By the time he was 22, he'd written a feature film. Eventually, two of his scripts, Killing Time and Downtime, were filmed and he was "catapulted into the world of feature films".

Again, he became unsettled. "I didn't like being a writer because you have even less control than being an actor. I was not happy with what I was doing and decided I needed a change," he recalls.

He found what he wanted on a life-changing trip to the American gambling capital of Las Vegas. He began gambling, first playing backgammon and then "venturing across the line into the poker room" at the end of 1999.

Berry became a professional poker player and now intends to share his love of the game in The Player, a documentary in a forthcoming Tyne Tees Television series called Night Shift.

Think again if you imagine that playing cards is simply a matter of shuffling the pack, dealing, betting and bluffing. "I went away and read 50 books, and went out to America in 2000 to be a professional poker player," he says.

"I was there four months and won in the second two months. I wouldn't do it if I didn't expect to win money, especially now. My last trip to Las Vegas was more like a job than anything else I had ever done.

"It's a job and you work incredibly hard. The aim is to play better than the other players. That involves a lot of study and, when you're playing, patience and discipline.

"If you are good, you can make money. You're not beholden to anyone, your customers or your viewers. I think it's unique."

He views it as earning a living more than gambling, pointing out that you wouldn't call working in insurance a gamble although it involves placing bets. The company might make a loss on him driving his car, but will make a profit on a greater number of cases at the end of the day.

"I might make a loss on this or that game, but during the course of the year I'm going to make a profit," he says. "If you place a bet on roulette, you are going to make a loss because the house has the edge. If you make a profit at poker, it's because you're a better player."

He was playing four or five nights in Newcastle, and spending six months of the year at the poker table in Las Vegas until forming a production company, twentyfirstcentury media. This undertakes work for the commercial sector, making and distributing promotional films for companies and clients, using new media such as CD-Rom and DVD.

Berry aims to put the spotlight on the North-East's poker scene in his Tyne Tees documentary. He says there are games going on every night of the week at casinos in Newcastle, Sunderland and Stockton.

"There are hundreds of players in the North-East. I was playing for a year before discovering this is the case. Because these places can't advertise, people don't know about them," he explains.

He says the number of players are in hundreds rather than thousands, adding: "Give it five years and it's going to be huge."

Berry maintains that anyone can become a good poker player. He's not a natural, having had to learn and work at it. The skills required are patience, discipline, application and an ability to deal with losses.

"Poker teaches you an enormous amount about business," he says. "I can state categorically that I could not be running my own business if it wasn't for the lessons I've learnt playing poker. It was the most disciplined process I've had in my life."

He sees no problem running a business and continuing to be a professional player. "Poker is something I hope to be making money at when I'm 65," he says.

He sees gambling addiction as an illness affecting a minority of people in society. It should be taken seriously, while realising that the majority of players aren't addicts.

"Most people are able to go out and play poker or roulette, enjoy themselves and still have the shirt on their back. I don't have a problem exposing people to gambling generally. EastEnders has a pub but it's not promoting the drinking of alcohol."

Published: 18/01/2003