Two tournament organisers get six and eight months in prison for organising a poker event
Wednesday 30th April 2008
Reports through the Swedish news portal TheLocal.se have revealed that two men have been found guilty of organising an illegal poker tournament in the country. The men have been jailed for six and eight months respectively.
Two other men were also fined the equivalent of eighty days’ wages, and another two were cleared of all charges relating to the tournament organisation. The sentences were passed at Uddevalla. The lawyer of the man who received and eight month sentence, Henrik Olsson Lilja, said an appeal was imminent.
“We think the district court has gone too far with a prison sentence. A reasonable consequence might have been a suspended sentence coupled with community service,' said the lawyer to The Local.
The tournament in question was a SEK 1 million (€106,000), which saw over 700 players enter. The tournament was broken up by police who decided that the event was illegal. Two of the men charged worked for the gaming company sponsoring the event, while two were local businessmen. The other two worked for the conference centre which was hosting the tournament.
