22-Year-Old Comes to Washington to Play Poker, Robs a Bank after Busting

In life, things often don't pan out as one expects them to. This is true regardless of what you do, but especially true for poker because of the inherent variance connected to it. Add to that the fact that people will often overestimate their poker-playing abilities, and things can go very bad very fast if you are not careful.

That is a lesson that 22-year-old Ben McCleanlearned the hard way. The Texan came to Seattle to play poker, as he heard the games were good there. He cashed out his entire account, about $8,000, and with that money started the grind.

It turned out it wouldn’t be much of a grind, as his roll did not last too long. As he later told police, McClean even anticipated that outcome when he decided to take the trip and checked in two handguns in his luggage to have recourse if he busted.

And bust he did. Not long after arriving in Washington, McClean was completely broke. At that point, he decided that he had nothing to lose and started looking for a bank that would be an easy mark for an armed robbery.

He eventually settled on the Homestreet Bank and around 6 pm on Friday, McClean entered the bank, pulled out a gun, and demanded money from the teller. A couple of minutes later, he ran away with about $7,000 in cash. The “plan” did not quite work out for him, however, as police arrived shortly thereafter. With the help of police dogs, they tracked McClean down to a nearby trailer park and arrested him.

McClean did not try to deny the crime as the evidence was overwhelming, and during the interview he told the officers that he decided to go through with his plan to rob a bank after spending two nights out in the cold and without any food.

The busted poker star wannabe also told officers that the gun he used was not loaded and that he had no intention of hurting anyone, despite the fact he threatened to kill the two tellers and a customer who happened to be at the bank during the robbery.

McClean is now being held on multiple counts of robbery, theft and assault. It came to light during the investigation that his initial “bankroll” was probably the result of another bank robbery in Humble, Texas, which was apparently more successful than this one.

Photo: city-data