Ex-Drug Dealer Became Expert Poker Player in Prison
Joe Reddick from the Bronx, New York served 15 years of a 20 year sentence in prison for dealing crack cocaine. While serving his time in prison he became interested in the poker games played by other inmates.
I asked a guy who was running the game if I could play. I said, but I don’t know how to play. He was like, Oh, um, we’ll teach you as we go along. I lost about $7,000 worth of Snickers bars. That’s how I learned. They were just gentlemen. The thugs were over here, and the poker players were over here.
While they couldn’t play for money they would play for anything of value, including sweets, cans of tuna, sweat suits and tennis shoes. Reddick honed is talent for the game across 11 different prisons, playing in games against Columbian drug Lord Pepe.
On his release from prison in 2008, he took $500 dollars to the Taj Mahal in Atlantic City and walked away with $2,500. He has amassed over $1.5 million in winnings in both tournaments and cash games.
Reddick’s biggest win came in the side event of the Borgata Winter Open in Atlantic City, earning him a pay cheque of $217,792 by beating a field of 3268 players in January 2016. Since his big win in Atlantic City, he has been nicknamed 'Black' and now has the World Series of Poker in his sights after witnessing it on television while in prison.
I was like, Wow, they’re really playing this out in the world. I didn’t know that until I saw it on TV. That’s the dream, I won’t stop until I win it.
Riddick has 5 children and supports them financially through the money he makes poker playing.
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