Underage Dutch Online Poker Champ Had $518K Tournament Prize Annulled

A 17 year old Dutch kid who’s been illegally playing on Poker Stars under the name ‘Zeurrr’ just had $518,402 slip through his fingers after finishing in 4th place at last Sunday’s Poker Stars 5 Million Anniversary Tournament. He won the $518K alright, but a Dutch reporter quickly uncovered the player’s true age from Twitter and Facebook bragging posts. Zeurrr was just three months shy of his eighteenth birthday.

Both Dutch gambling laws as well as Poker Star policy do not allow anyone below the age of 18 to register with their poker room, so the unlucky teenager was disqualified.

The 17 year old, qualified for the $215 buy-in Sunday Million Anniversary Tournament by first winning a $2 satellite tournament, guaranteeing him a $215 buy-in fee. He outplayed the massive 59,128 person playing field and reached the final table with the 4th largest amount of chips. At this point a deal was made, based on the number of chips each player had, and the 17 year old had the cool 1/2 million guaranteed.

When the ecstatic boy realized he would need to show some identification in order to collect the money, he panicked. He told his father, and the father/son decided to pretend that it was the father who was playing in the tournament. The scheme was unraveled when a Dutch reported called the house, looking for an interview, and quickly became suspicious by the father’s evasive, nervous answers and his complete lack of understanding of how the game of poker works.

The snooping reporter, after examining the teen’s Twitter and Facebook accounts, discovered that recently the account information was altered and a number of posts were edited or deleted. The eventual conclusion to this sad tale was the closing down of the youth’s Poker Stars account, and his $518K win being distributed amongst the other players at the final table.

Simon Keijzer of Poker Stars Holland stated – ‘All under-aged players are not allowed to participate in any live money event on Poker Stars. Those who are caught will lose their deposit, disqualified and banned. You must be at least 18 years of age to play poker in the Netherlands, and we respect the individual laws of the countries of our poker room players.”

Poker Stars is technically illegal under Dutch gambling laws since only the Holland Casino monopoly is allowed to operate poker rooms or websites where citizens are permitted to play online poker in Netherlands.