Tennis coach’s gambling debts led to murder, say poker players

Tennis coach Mark de J. and murdered business man Koen Everink were fighting over De J.'s gambling debt. De J. is suspected in Everink's murder. The tennis coach has thousands of euros in gambling debt, accrued by playing poker. Including 80 thousand euros he owed Everink, insiders in the poker world told website Pokernews.nl.

According to the poker players, De J. often played poker online, but was not all that good at it. With generally only small amounts at stake, the tennis coach managed to lose nearly 63 thousand euros on poker site PokerStars.

Pokernews.nl reports that Koen Everink lent 80 thousand euros to to De J. to help with his poker debts, but he wanted the money back in the short term. He knew about De J.'s gambling problems and threatened to expose them to the media.

Everink and De J. knew each other for a few years. Everink was very interested in tennis and often traveled with professional players to tournaments, including Robin Haase. De J. coached Haase since 2014.

On March 3rd De J. went to Everink's house to watch football with him. Everink's body was discovered the next morning. He was stabbed to death. De J. went to the police to give a witness statement, saying that he saw suspicious people around Everink's home that night, according to the site. The police were not convinced and arrested De J. last week, as he was returning from a tennis tournament in Miami.

The tennis coach was arraigned on Saturday. He was remanded back into custody for another 14 days, according to the Telegraaf.