Has a poker player who robbed a Washington state bank made the game look bad following his arrest? Ben McClean, who says he lost $8,000 playing poker, is now sitting in a suburban Seattle jail after robbing a Marysville bank. Police found him hiding in a bush just 100 yards away from the scene of the crime.
McClean’s defense appears to be that poker is the real culprit since he lost all of his money on the tables. After living in the streets of Marysville and “freezing his ass off,” the 22-year-old decided that he’d try the ultimate one-outer of robbing a bank to recoup his money. So he walked into the bank and told the teller to fill his bag with cash or he’d killer her and two other workers; McClean also pointed the gun at himself at one point, which, as it turns out, wasn’t even loaded.
“It was just the mentality of ‘Dude, you just lost everything,'” he told police afterward. “You really can’t go any lower so might as well give it a go, and that is exactly why I robbed it.”
Poker is certainly one of the victims here
The whole reason why McClean moved to Washington in the first place is because he heard the Evergreen State has good casinos. “I saw my life wasn’t going anywhere and thought I would take a shot,” he explained to detectives. McClean, who’s originally from Texas, is now a suspect in a bank robbery in his home state too.
Perhaps this is where the original $8k came from that he used to find his poker bankroll? Regardless, it certainly doesn’t look good for poker when some guy (no matter how crooked) loses his money on the felt, goes homeless, then robs a bank because he “can’t go any lower.”
Will this crime hurt Washington online poker’s chances?
It’s clear from the story that McClean was playing at land-based poker rooms when he lost. But still, Washington is the only U.S. state that criminalizes the simple act of playing online poker. And given that poker was involved in this robbery tale, it’s doubtful that politicians and others in the state will look any more favorably on the game.
An iPoker bill (HB 1114) was introduced in Washington earlier this year, but was quickly dropped when State Rep. Sherry Appleton failed to drum up significant support. It’s likely that Appleton or somebody else will try to legalize online poker in Washington again next year. And we can only hope that McClean’s story of robbery and addiction doesn’t reflect negatively on the game.