Priest Wins $100,000 in Poker Game
December 24, 2009
A priest has shown that its not all about staying in at home and reading the bible when he’s not conducting a service at his parish.
The South Carolina based priest entered into a poker tournament with his hopes set firmly on taking the $1 million first place prize money with the view to donate it back into the church.
Reverend Andrew Trapp entered the Pokerstars.net Million Dollar Challenge in a bid to help Saint Michael Cathlic Church reach their $5.5 million fundraising objective that they have set themselves to pay for a new facility.
Trapp said that he was also looking to strike a public relations blow for priests all over the world, showing that been a priest is not just about studying the holy book in their spare time.
The assistant pastor said that even if he didn’t win any prize money, he hoped that his participation would remove the tag that priests were boring and that they too could have fun and pass their spare time like everyone else.
The first place payout went to a retired New York Police detective but Trapp took $100,000 from the prize pool that will be untaxed profit and placed straight into the churches fundraising account which already contains $4 million in funds after 4 years of continued fundraising.
In his Sunday Mass the priest told his visitors that God had given him the gift of playing cards and that he was really excited that he could use his hobby and interest to aid the church in their goal to build a new facility for the church.
The church congregation will head to the church on Sunday to see a televised version of the game that saw their assistant pastor cash in the hugely popular tournament.
To get into the final of the poker tournament, Trapp had to finish within the top 10 players in a tournament that saw over 10,000 hopefullys take to the virtual felts. After finishing within the top 10 places the priest then had to submit a two minute audition tape to the tournament organisers to be considered.
Trapp revealed that he knew that if he could reach the top 10 players within the tournament to win a chance to audition for the poker final that he would be a certainty for selection as a poker player priest would attract a huge amount of attention and viewers.
Taking to the live poker table he entered wearing his priest attire, saying that he was so used to wearing it that if he didn’t wear it he would have felt uncomfortable.
The assistant pastor told Pokerstars.net that the fact that he was playing in the tournament was not a gamble as it was at no cost to him nor the church so there was nothing on the line for the priest to lose.
Trapp finished his interview by saying “It’s a question of moderation — just like anything else,” he said. “We believe it’s fine to enjoy a beer or glass of wine, but not to abuse it to get drunk.”
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