Boris Becker Says Prison Poker Left Him in Debt to Bad People
Posted on: September 8, 2025, 07:07h.
Last updated on: September 8, 2025, 07:07h.
- Prison poker left Becker £500 in debt to inmates.
- Memoir Inside recounts Wandsworth conditions and lasting psychological scars.
- Ex-PokerStars ambassador describes threats after multi-day prison game.
German tennis legend Boris Becker got into a poker game with some nasty people while locked up in a UK prison and ended up owing money to hardened criminals who made his life hell.
The revelation comes from Becker’s new memoir, Inside, which details the trauma of the eight months he spent locked up as part of a two-and-a-half-year sentence for bankruptcy offenses.
In 2022, he was found to have concealed assets and loans that he should have disclosed to the courts following his 2017 insolvency.
Mind ‘Boiled’
In an interview to promote the book with German media outlet SZ-Magazin this week, Becker opened up about his time in the can. The former PokerStars brand ambassador described prison as a place that “eats away at your soul and boils your mind.”
Becker’s cell consisted of a narrow cot with a plastic mattress and a metal toilet without a seat, according to SZ-Magazin. But what hit him hardest were the screams at night – it was “as if people were screaming for their lives,” said Becker. “It went on all night.”
By October, I was sleeping in my tracksuit and socks,” he added. “Some nights it was so cold in my cell that I slept in two jackets and two pairs of socks, wrapping a towel around my head. I lost seven kilos in the first four weeks.”
Becker tried to pass the time and ease the mental stress of his incarceration by playing poker, a pastime close to his heart.
After retiring in 1999, he pursued poker semi-professionally while also coaching tennis and working as a media pundit. He represented PokerStars from 2007 to 2014 and was a regular on the European Poker Tour circuit.
This proved to be a “foolish” idea, according to Becker, who describes a game he played with a group of Romanian prisoners that lasted for several days. When the dust settled, the former three-time Wimbledon champion ended up £500 in the hole to the Romanians.
Bailed Out by Friend
That might not seem like a lot for a man who was once worth multiple millions – but it’s a lot of money in prison.
“I had played poker professionally after tennis, so I thought, what could go wrong? But I was playing with real criminals, who came into my cell and threatened me if I didn’t pay.”
Becker had to beg a friend on the outside to pay the debt via a money transfer. If his friend hadn’t helped him, he thinks he would be a “different person today.”
“You’ll never completely shake that time,” he said. “You’ll take prison with you into your new life. I can only fall asleep if the bedroom door is completely closed.”
Last Comments ( 2 )
As to the comment by D, it gives new meaning to hole cards.
Playing poker in prison with homosexuals. What could go wrong?