It’s the kind of storyline you would see in a film –
but one online poker win means that a new film will make it to the
big screen.
“We’re pretty sure that ours is the first film to be entirely
funded by online poker winnings” says film director Nick Scott,
who turned to poker after being frustrated by the lack of official
film funding. “It’s difficult for British filmmakers to
fund their projects. We had a great script and just wanted to make
the thing, but it was going to take us months to raise the cash ourselves.”
It was whilst at a friend’s poker night that Nick was introduced
to online poker. “I was a bit skeptical because I’d always
played live, but multi-player tournaments immediately stood out because
of the amount you can win off a very small stake.”
After thinking the project might never happen, Nick financed the project
after six hours of play from a GBP 3 stake on the Betfair Poker.com
site.
“I qualified for Betfair Poker’s daily GBP 15 000 tournament
and just played unbelievably tight”, says Scott. “Players
kept dropping out and after some careful play, I found myself playing
one-on-one for GBP 5 000. I have to admit to being lucky on the last
hand - I hit pocket nines and shoved all my chips in, the other player
called and turned over aces. I thought that was it, but the nine of
diamonds came up on the turn and I started dancing a little jig around
the room. I rang my producer up to tell her that I’d just won
our budget but she didn’t believe me and hung up.”
The winnings allowed Nick and his producer Fiona Brownlie, to set
up their own production company, aptly named The Winners Productions,
and to put their short film into pre-production. The film, called
‘Breaker’, is a Faustian tale about an artist who throws
bricks through windows to create a controversial piece of art, and
has already been requested by a number of international film festivals.
“We just made the official selection for a festival in South
Africa, so I guess I better get back to the tables to pay for our
tickets” Nick adds.
Betfair’s Head of Poker Ben Fried said, “Nick saw off
more than three hundred players to win the tournament. If he keeps
playing, this time next year he might be financing a Hollywood blockbuster.”
Meanwhile, whilst still playing on Betfair Poker, Nick and Fiona are
currently looking for more serious investment in their feature film
project ‘Black Box Recorder’, which won the Panasonic
script award at the Cannes Film Festival.
‘Breaker’ premiers at the Curzon Cinema in Soho on October
13.