WSOP Poker Player Who Threatened to Destroy Las Vegas Casinos Indicted on Terrorism Charge

Posted on: August 30, 2019, 09:39h. 

Last updated on: August 30, 2019, 01:11h.

Devin O'Connor @CasinoorgDevinO Read More
Expertise: Asia Pacific Gaming, Commercial Gaming, Legislation, Politics.

Poker player Ken Strauss, the man who exposed his genitals and threw his shoe at a dealer during the WSOP Main Event last month, has been indicted for making terroristic threats directed at Las Vegas casinos.

poker player WSOP Ken Strauss
Ken Strauss (left), the poker player/flasher who now faces years in prison, managed to recently snag a photo with great Daniel Negreanu. (Image: Twitter)

Clark County District Court Judge Linda Bell ordered the 45-year-old Strauss to be held on $150,000 bail after a grand jury indicted him on one count of “making threats or conveying false information concerning an act of terrorism.” Bell called the allegations “extraordinarily concerning.”

Strauss exposed himself during Main Event play on July 5. But what’s landed him in court – and now jail – is a tweet he posted July 27.

Shootings are taking place all over Las Vegas. Please leave me alone @VenetianVegas I have no place to go currently. And all Casinos that have banned me will be destroyed effective immediately,” a tweet from Strauss’ Twitter read.

“And @Rio, get my belongings together immediately when @POTUS declares safe I’m going,” he continued.

Strauss believes he’s personal friends with the president, but has admitted via social media that he’s “going through a tough period in my life. Mid-life crisis. I’ll go seek help.”

Nevada law says anyone convicted of the charge Strauss is facing “shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for a minimum term of not less than two years and a maximum term of not more than 20 years.”

According to The Hendon Mob, Strauss has five live cashes in his poker career for a total win of $8,646. His best result came last month, when he finished 122nd in the WSOP $5,000 No Limit Hold’em 6-Handed event for a $7,402 prize.

Serious Matter

A quick glance down Strauss’s Twitter finds some disturbing tweets. It is less than two years since the October 1, 2017, Route 91 Harvest Music Festival massacre that left 58 victims dead, and Las Vegas police aren’t taking any chances in allowing another potentially unhinged person to cause harm to others.

Like the October 1 shooter, it appears Strauss is angry at the casino – and perhaps other gamblers – for his losses.

“The state has concerns when you look inside the profile being similar to the October 1 profile,” Chief Deputy District Attorney Pete Thunell told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. It’s worth noting Metro Police nor the FBI were able to conclude a definitive motive for the Harvest festival massacre.

Strauss was disqualified from the $10,000 buy-in Main Event following his tableside antics.

Atypical WSOP

The 2019 World Series of Poker was crazier than ever, but some headlines were for all the wrong reasons.

Last month, poker pro Joe Sal said he was robbed at gunpoint in the Rio parking lot. “Guy jumped out of car in camouflage, shoved a gun in my face, and demanded my backpack with thousands in it and the keys to my car,” Sal tweeted.

Other players said they, too, were attacked in similar manners.

Another scandalous WSOP headline broke earlier this week when it was revealed that the US Marshals Service seized poker icon Phil Ivey’s $124,410 check from the $50,000 Poker Players Championship and sent it to the Borgata in Atlantic City. The MGM-owned casino has the legal authority to seize his assets in Nevada because of its edge-sorting lawsuit victory over the professional gambler.