Philly area topping poker charts, with Temple grad's $8M win

Most people go to college to launch a career.

Scott Blumstein went to Temple to find a career to fall back on, in case playing poker didn't work out.

A little after midnight Sunday, Blumstein, 25, won the World Series of Poker Main Event at the Rio Hotel and Casino. First prize was over $8 million, so Blumstein can put that accounting degree back in the drawer.

Blumstein got hooked on the game while he was at Temple — "I watched a lot of poker on TV," he said by phone from Las Vegas — and the Morristown, N.J., native was in the right place at the right time.  The ban on online poker sites ended around the time he turned 21, and New Jersey became one of three states (with Delaware and Nevada) to allow online poker.

He liked the fact that poker "was a game of skill," he said. "It has a gambling aspect, but it's way more than just gambling…. I don't like to gamble."

But, he said, the ability to play online gave him a big advantage because of the opportunity to see so many hands in so short a period of time.

"You can't replicate the feeling of live poker online," he said, "but online poker helped me get good at the technical side. Then live I'm pretty good at reading people, so it was like a perfect storm."

With Joe McKeehen from North Wales winning the WSOP two years ago, the Philadelphia area has become a hotbed of poker.

"It's not a coincidence," Blumstein said. "There's so much success around the Philly area because it's just a short train ride from New Jersey."

Blumstein added that he and McKeehen are friendly. When Blumstein was seriously bitten by the poker bug, McKeehen let him stay in his room at the Borgata. Blumstein moved to Brigantine after graduating from Temple in 2014, but he's also been known to try his hands at Sugarhouse and Parx when he's back in Pennsylvania.

The World Series of Poker is "the best tournament in the world," Blumstein said, because anyone can enter — as long as they put up the $10,000 entry fee. This year, 7,221 amateurs, hobbyists and pros came to the Rio and began play on July 8 to vie for the nearly $68 million in prizes. The event played out over 15 days — 87 hours and 14 minutes of poker.

"It takes a lot of mental aptitude and hard work," Blumstein said. "I rarely drink coffee," he added, "but I did make exceptions during the 12-hour days."

Blumstein said he has no idea what's next, although he does expect to try to defend his title in 2018. He called himself "moderately responsible" and said he'd done "nothing rash yet" with his winnings. After he won, he celebrated at "one of the nicer suites at the Rio."

The runner-up was another 25-year-old local man — Dan Ott, an alumnus of Penn State Altoona, won $4.7 million. Ott and his twin brother Dillon also won money in the $1,000 Tag Team event.