BERLIN — Armed robbers on Saturday struck at a million-euro poker tournament in Berlin, stealing money and injuring gamblers, police said.
The masked gang burst into the Grand Hyatt hotel in central Berlin, where the tournament was taking place, threatening security staff and prompting a brief panic, police spokeswoman Heidi Vogt told AFP.
Berlin's Die Tageszeitung newspaper reported on its website that six raiders armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles and grenades made off with 800,000 euros (more than Cdn $1.1 million).
"Several masked, armed individuals entered the Grand Hyatt and fled with a haul of money," Vogt said, without giving details of the sum involved.
She said a number of the tournament's players were injured in the incident, though none was seriously hurt.
The tournament organizer, the European Poker Tour (EPT), said the six robbers were probably attracted by the million-euro prize on offer to the winner of the event.
The EPT said the attack took place around 2:30 p.m. local time (5:30 a.m. PDT) but did not say how much was stolen.
Images of the chaotic scenes during the raid were broadcast by the private n-tv television station, showing furniture overturned and poker players hiding under tables and trying to escape. (See YouTube clip below.)
A witness, Jasmin Wiegand, told n-tv the attack lasted around 10 minutes and said security staff had responded "very bravely."
Four of the attackers entered the hotel from Potsdamer Platz, one of the German capital's most important and popular squares, while two others kept watch, the Tageszeitung reported.
A security guard briefly stopped one of the robbers, who hit him over the head with a weapon and fled, the newspaper said.
The tournament, which German tennis legend Boris Becker took part in earlier, resumed around four hours after the attack, according to n-tv and the website pokernews.com.
Nearly 1,000 players are to take part in the five-day poker tournament, the EPT's first in Berlin.
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