ShareCasinos can be a workplace, an entertainment centre, and a place where lives can change at the spin of a wheel or turn of a card, but the only thing guaranteed is that there will always be amazing stories connected to them!
Today we are going to look at how poker players have been at the centre of many of these remarkable tales...
Before we start, it should be mentioned that there are many factors to consider when choosing a new casino to play at but for poker pros there is often only one – how much money is at stake!
Kenney takes 1st by finishing 2nd!
That’s what the world’s best were thinking about when they descended on the London Hilton on Park Lane in 2019, a £1million entry fee plus a £50k donation to charity to play in the Triton Million.
At the end of the third day’s play, only two men were left standing, and a heads-up deal saw Bryn Kenney walk off with £16,890,509 ($20,563,324) although he would actually lose the title to Aaron Zang.
Kenney could boast the largest tournament prize in poker history and jumped straight to the top of the all-time moneywinners list in the process!
Not everyone heads for a casino with the plan to win their way to riches. For some an altogether more nefarious plan has been hatched...
Robbing the European Poker Tour...
It’s not something you’ll have to worry about when you play your poker online, but back in 2010 the European Poker Tour Main Event prizepool was robbed in broad daylight.
As the contenders were playing down to a final table, armed gunmen decided they’d like a piece of the €4,725,000 ($6,409,126) prizepool, a chunk of which was apparently on display at Berlin’s Grand Hyatt Hotel casino.
Although the police later apprehended four men, with three eventually sentenced to prison terms, only €4k of the €242,000 ($327,000) stolen was ever recovered.
American Kevin McPhee proved that honesty was still the most lucrative policy, going on to win the event and €1,000,000 ($1,356,428) while avoiding jail!
Doubling up your poker win on the roulette wheel!
Another poker player who certainly has a favourite casino is England’s Jake Cody, who had an amazing run at the Dusk Till Dawn casino in 2018.Cody had just chopped the £2,200 buy-in High Roller event at the UK Poker Championships for a sweet £42,670 ($59,393) payday. Now that may not have been in the same ballpark as his EPT Deauville victory 8 years previously, an €857,000 ($1,213,193) scoop.
However, there was a delightful sting in the more recent win’s tail, as Cody asked the casino owner, Rob Yong, if he could place the £42k on the spin of a roulette wheel.
Yong not only agreed, but spun the wheel himself, though it cost him another £42k as Cody’s bet on black came home for a unique double-up! Yong subsequently removed the roulette tables from his cardroom, though not because of Cody’s double or nothing.
As you can see, casinos are an absolute treasure trove of the weird and the wonderful, the remarkable and the scary, and of believable and never-in-a-million years stories.
We’ll be back shortly with some of the most incredible online casino stories from recent years, so be sure to check in regularly!
