The King of Video Poker explores: what happens when none of it is enough? What does a man like this do when the thrill of winning is gone, when the love of his wife and the possibility of a relationship with his son feels vacant, when the sex with the hot blond isn’t sustainable and the friendships, such as they are, are gone, and the heat is overwhelming and the free food doesn’t taste good anymore? 

What then? Which, broadened out, is meant to feel like an indictment of all of us, of our American culture of more more more and our general spiritual emptiness. The protagonist is not all of us, nor is he reductively representative of us, but he is what happens when all of our American excesses are taken to one of their logical conclusions.