Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Gambling Son Skips Mother’s Seders in Boca — Wins $1 Million in Poker

A Montreal man skipped both of his mother’s seders to advance in a poker tournament in which he won more than $1 million.

Eric Afriat on April 16 won the World Poker Tour/Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown in Hollywood, Florida.

He missed both seders at his mother’s home in West Boca Raton, Fla. as he advanced in the tournament, and told the Florida Sun-Sentinel that he considered quitting the tournament to attend the seders with his extended family.

“Here I was moving up the ladder in a big poker tournament, yet I kept getting more depressed,” he said. “I was so sad I thought about just leaving my chips at the table Monday night and going home. But I’m now delighted everyone was in town to see me win.”

Afriat, 45, is an importer from Montreal. He was the only amateur poker player in the final round of the tournament, which drew 1,795 participants.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.