A Bronx man who served 15 years in prison for dealing crack learned how to play serious poker behind bars — and has since become a millionaire, cleaning up at tournaments across the country.
Joe Reddick, 47, whose biggest haul to date was $217,792 at the Borgata Winter Poker Open in Atlantic City this month, perfected his game playing with fellow cons — including a Colombian drug lord known as “Pepe” — at the 11 federal prisons he was in along the East Coast.
“At first, it was a time-killer. Then it became a passion. I would play all day, all night, seven days a week,” Reddick told The Post. “I became infamous. Any prison I arrived at, they knew there was going to be a big poker game going on.”
He said he first became interested while watching inmates play seven-card stud for candy bars at a county jail in Guilford, NC, where he was awaiting sentencing.
“I asked a guy who was running the game if I could play,” he recalled. “I said, ‘But I don’t know how to play.’ He was like, ‘Oh, um, we’ll teach you as we go along.’
“I lost about $7,000 worth of Snickers bars. That’s how I learned.”
By the time he got to his first federal lockup, in Allenwood, Pa., Reddick was running his own table.
“We gambled anything that had value, from cans of tuna fish to sweat suits and tennis shoes,” he said. “People were losing more than they were losing in county jail; they were losing thousands and thousands of dollars.”
Despite the surroundings, the games were civilized.
“They were just gentlemen. The thugs were over here, and the poker players were over here,” he said.
Reddick knew he wanted to be a pro gambler when he caught the World Series of Poker on ESPN one day.
“I was like, ‘Wow, they’re really playing this out in the world.’ I didn’t know that until I saw it on TV,” he said.
When he was released in 2008, Reddick took a bus with $500 in cash straight to Atlantic City’s Taj Mahal — and walked out with $2,500.
“I never looked back,” Reddick recalled.
Now, between tourneys and casino cash games, his total haul is $1.5 million.
Reddick sends most of his cash to his five kids and puts the rest back into poker.
His goal: to be the first African-American winner of the World Series of Poker.
“That’s the dream” he said. “I won’t stop until I win it.”