Too big for Vegas

An interesting problem has cropped up for an online poker room in the UK this week. We all know about online qualifiers for the World Series of Poker but for one winner on jonnytexaspoker.com, winning was the easy bit, with the hard part, getting to Vegas, now to come.

Dubbed ‘Britain’s fattest man’ by the Daily Star newspaper, Barry Austin of Birmingham, who tips the scales at an incredible 50 stone, won the £10,000 trip to this year’s WSOP due to be held at the Rio Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, in July and August.

However, Austin is so large that he can’t be accommodated on a passenger aircraft, so an alternative travel solution is being sought by the tournament organisers.

Austin told the Daily Star “I love poker and play every night. But I couldn’t believe it when I won the qualifying tournament – and neither could the organisers.”

The lure of playing at the World Series of Poker may even change Barry’s lifestyle: “I am thinking thinking of going on a diet because I really want to get to Vegas. However I don’t think I’ll be the biggest person there. Some of those Yanks are huge.”

Tournament organiser Jon ‘Texas’ Hewston of jonnytexaspoker.com said: “We’ve tried to fit him on a plane but there’s no chance so we’ve given up on that. We even made inquiries about helicopters to see of they were up to the task.”

“We are now looking at a boat trip to New York, then getting the train through America. It seems to be the only way.”