| | |  | Last Updated: Tuesday, June 19, 2007 |  | | | Joe Bartholdi is a Gambling Champion
- Saturday, 29 Apr 2006
And the gambling champion of the world is... This year at the World Poker Tour plenty of players went home with a bit of extra cash in their pocket. However, there were those gambling fans who went home with nothing and lost the $25,000 buy-in fee. For all of you out there who failed to make it into the money rounds, remember that there is always next year, and your gambling luck may increase with time. For the winners, congrats, perhaps next year you may win the 3.76 million dollar pot that the number one gambling champ took home.
Joe Bartholdi, a 26-year-old former Las Vegas card dealer, ignored the odds to beat 604 other poker players and win the WPT World Championship and $3.76 million. The native of San Diego, Calif., said he didn't think much of his chance at winning when he reached the final table at the gambling championship, but others around him sensed he had something on his side. Before the tournament, Matthew owed $80,000 to five credit card companies and missed most of the first day of play because he forgot which day it started.
Bartholdi clutched an unsuited nine-five going into the final hand Monday night against Davidson Matthew, a St. Johns, Antigua native from Canada who parlayed a $25 online buy-in tournament into a cool $1.9 million second-place finish. A flop of ace-nine-eight with two hearts showing gave Bartholdi a measly pair of nines. After successive raises and counter-raises, Bartholdi called Matthew's all-in bet. He then proceeded to win more money than he could ever dream of, and has gone done in the gambling record books as one of the unkowns who manages to become a known quite quickly.
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