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Wannabe poker pro Joran van der Sloot, who was arrested last week in South America in the suspected murder of a young Peruvian woman, reportedly came to Peru for the Latin American Poker Tour (LAPT) tournament LAPT-Lima.
A decent poker player, he is also known to have played poker in casinos in Aruba and the Netherlands, as well as online.
So why wasn't someone, who yearns to be a big-time professional poker player, at poker's biggest event, the World Series of Poker (WSOP) in Las Vegas, instead of at a minor tourney in Lima, Peru?
If van der Sloot really wants to make the poker big leagues, one would've thought he would've been at the biggest poker tournament of all.
"He can't show his face in Las Vegas," a poker industry source told Gambling911.com. "He can't show his face anywhere in the U.S. He's too well-known. He's been all over TV in the U.S. for the last five years, in connection with the Natalee Holloway disappearance.
"Everyone thinks he killed Holloway, or at least had something to do with her disappearance," the source continued. "If he showed up at the World Series of Poker, at best he's going to get hassled and at worst someone might physically attack him. It wasn't safe.
"Despite the worldwide publicity of the Holloway case, van der Sloot was relatively unknown in South America--until now--so he felt safe attending a poker tournament in Peru. So much for his poker career."
Dutchman van der Sloot is suspected in the murder last week of 21-year-old Stephany Flores, a Peruvian woman he met in a Lima casino while he was in town for LAPT-Lima.
The woman, daughter of a one-time Peruvian presidential candidate, was found dead with a broken neck in a $40-a-night motel room that had been rented to van der Sloot.
He fled the scene, but was picked up soon after in Chile.
Chilean authorities then turned him over to Peruvian authorities, who placed him under arrest.
He is also wanted on charges in the U.S.
The FBI announced last week it had charged him with trying to extort $250,000 from Holloway's mother, in exchange for information about Natalee.
By Tom Somach
Gambling911.com Staff Writer
