After being forced to leave the England squad due to illness, and unable to travel to Czech Republic, James Maddison returned home to Leicester. But on Friday night, when England were playing – and losing – their vital European Championship qualifier, Maddison wasn’t at home watching on the box. He was playing poker at the Grosvenor Casino in Leicester city centre.
While, to some, this action might be seen as a misuse of his time, to those in the poker industry, many will see nothing wrong with the young Premier League star pitching up for a game of poker.
Having performed at the top of his game for Leicester on several occasions this season, Maddison has been hailed as a vital player for England. His position behind front players is one of the toughest to excel in on the pitch, but for Norwich and now for Leicester, Maddison has looked the business for well over two years. There are rumours that a host of top clubs are interested in the playmaker, with Manchester United reportedly at the front of a long queue.
So, is there anything wrong with a Premier League footballer worth £60 million or more taking to the tables at the very time his team-mates were playing international football in Prague?
According to sources, Maddison was only in the casino little more than an hour, so it was likely not a multi-table tournament. Friday night events at the Grosvenor Leicester Casino run until the small hours. It might have been a cash game that Maddison played in to distract himself from missing a game he would have been desperate to play in.
Maddison playing poker isn’t so much a shock to Midlands players as it might be to mainstream media or football fans who see poker purely as a casino game related to gambling, rather than the mindsport it was classified as back in 2011.
Maddison’s Hendon Mob page shows a number of results that total approximately £3,500, that is, if you ignore two results attributed to him that would place him at Dusk Till Dawn playing £25 tournaments when he was 12 years old.
Poker is often seen as an addictive game, particularly in regard to sportsmen in a sport where players would gamble silly money on the back table-seats of the team bus. But poker has moved on, so why can’t players? If players aren’t gambling half their wages – and Maddison’s ‘pile of chips’ didn’t look huge to our eyes – then what’s the harm? People play poker for many reasons and as a fun, intelligence-based distraction from a frustration or concern, poker works very well at clearing the mind.
Whether James Maddison joins players such as Tomas Brolin, Ronaldo or Neymar in pursuing poker after his career on the football pitch comes to a close, we won’t know for around a decade. But with Maddison enjoying the game during his fledgling career at Coventry and now at Leicester, it might be refreshing to see a high-profile footballer who declares an interest in the game while he is at his peak of his career.
One thing is for sure, whether Maddison makes it as footballer is not a question of luck at all. He may play poker only sporadically, but he’s pot committed in the Premier League and will surely go all-in on the International stage very soon.
