“Aesthetic medicine” practitioner Dr. Jack Berdy has figured out a way to beat the game of poker by selling Botox injections to mid- and high-stakes card sharks to eliminate their “tells.” He calls this “Pokertox,” and while it’s really just a gimmicky repurposing and promotion of a ho-hum cosmetic, what it says about Berdy’s clientele is fascinating.

As Berdy deadens his patients’ faces to prevent nervous ticks, twitches, jumpy eyebrows, frowns, trembling lips, and other obvious signs of relief, annoyance, elation, or fear, he essentially removes all traces of the life they’ve lived from their expressions. On the one hand, if he’s successful and the other players are unable to read that face, Berdy will have replaced his client’s actual “character” with the character of a “winner.” He or she will, after all, have “won,” right? Since these days a receipt for that win is all that matters, whoever’s counting the pot at the end of the game is the clear victor here. It’s just funny that we’re talkin’ about adding or removing character with a syringe to triumph in a game traditionally viewed as a test of one’s mettle. Read more