Germany poker heist: four sentenced
A German court has convicted four young men of robbery and bodily harm for carrying out a brazen daylight raid on a poker tournament in March and making off with 242,000 euros in jackpot money.
The Berlin state court on Thursday sentenced the group's 21-year-old ringleader to three years and nine months in prison. Three other offenders, aged 19 to 20, were all handed a three-and-a-half-year sentence in juvenile detention.
All four had confessed to storming the tournament at a central Berlin hotel on March 6 and making off with most of the jackpot. The confessions played a role in their relatively lenient sentences.
They refused to give any details about the whereabouts of the money, only 4,000 euros of which has been recovered.
Richard Jeffries from poker gossip and news website Poker Jolt said: "This could become an increasing problem in Europe.
"Prize pools for the big European Poker Tour events are already massive and, backed by a huge company like PokerStars, they're only going to get bigger."