Pro Poker Player Contests World Record 74th Election

John Turmel has been losing elections since before you could count outs.

Not many professional poker players make a habit out of losing. It’s a good thing for John Turmel that his losing occurs in elections and not at the poker table.

If there’s an election going on in the Canadian province of Ontario, you could do a lot worse than betting that Turmel would be a candidate on some city or riding’s ballot. Though the 59-year-old lists his profession as that of professional poker player, Turmel occupies a lot of his time fighting losing political battles. Since first running for office as an independent candidate for Parliament in May 1979, Turmel has contested a total of 73 elections without a win. His penchant for running for office is historic enough to have been noted in the Guinness Book of World Records. He first appeared in the book in 1997, in the category “most elections contested,” with a total of 41.

Among the causes Turmel has agitated for in his 73 prior elections are the abolition of interest on loans, the legalization of marijuana and the legalization of gambling. That last one brought him a fair degree of notoriety; his casinos were shut down by the government on numerous occasions, and his Ottawa casino, Casino Turmel, was the subject of Project Robin Hood, the largest gaming house raid in Canadian history, back in 1993.

The current tilted windmill for John Turmel is an election for the mayor of Brantford, a city of 90,000 in southern Ontario that’s most famous for being the home of legendary hockey player Wayne Gretzky. He’ll find out whether he’s finally won his first election sometime after the ballots are counted on October 25 – and then most likely get back to playing poker in Atlantic City, Mississippi, California, Arizona, or wherever else he can find a game.