One of the winners at the 2008 World Series of Poker (WSOP) in Las Vegas has a shocking past–he spent six months in prison for drug trafficking!

Professional poker player Mike “The Mouth” Matusow, known as much for his poker skills as for his non-stop jabber at the poker tables, earlier this month won 2008 WSOP Event #18, a $5,000 buy-in, no-limit 2-7 lowball draw tourney with rebuys.

The event drew 85 participants, paid the Top 14 finishers and had a total prize pool of about $1.7 million.

Matusow collected $537,857 for the win.

It was his third career WSOP event victory and third career WSOP championship gold bracelet, putting his career poker tourney earnings over $5 million.

But it hasn’t all been smooth sailing for the 39-year-old Las Vegas resident.

According to media reports at the time, Matusow was arrested in 2003 at his Las Vegas home for selling drugs to an undercover law enforcement officer.

Specificially, Matusow sold the undercover agent cocaine, Percocet pills (a painkiller) and Ecstasy pills (a hallucinogen), the media reports said.

In 2004, in court and facing 10 years in prison on the charges, Matusow copped a plea, admitted to drug trafficking and was sentenced to six months imprisonment in the Clark County Detention Center, a Las Vegas jail, the media reports said.

Matusow began serving his sentence in late 2004 and was released from prison in 2005, the media reports said.

To his credit, Matusow has not shied away from his dark past, speaking freely about it over the years with various media.

Shortly after his release from prison in 2005, Matusow told the Baltimore Sun: “It was all a big setup. I was set up by my doctor, who was in some big trouble. He begged me to pick up some drugs from someone, and after they caught me, they wanted me to wear a wire, because they were after someone prominent in town. If I had, my life could have been in danger. But it (distributing drugs) was wrong, I shouldn’t have done it. Now, I’ve been trying to be a good person.”

And in 2007, Matusow told USA Today: “I still don’t believe what I did. What has happened to me in the last five years shouldn’t happen to anybody. Drugs became such a natural part of my life, I didn’t think of them as illegal. I was so dumb and naive. I met someone who became my friend and who says he’d never hurt me, and he turns out to be an undercover cop and destroys me. I thought it was a joke.”

Matusow is just one of many shady characters with dark pasts who are at the 2008 WSOP.

Shahram Sheikhan of Las Vegas, known as the “Poker Pervert,” has competed in at least two events at this year’s WSOP. Ten years ago he served nine months in a California prison for sexually molesting two underage girls. Last year, he spent time in the same Clark County Detention Center Matusow once called home, while the U.S. government unsuccessfully tried to deport Iran native Sheikhan because of his criminal record.

Ernest Scherer III of Los Angeles, suspected by police of murdering his parents earlier this year in California, is also at the 2008 WSOP. Although it’s not known whether he is actually competing in any WSOP events this year, he did play in a WSOP tournament in 2006.

Thomas “Amarillo Slim” Preston Jr., the famed Texan poker pro, has competed in many WSOP events in the past, including at the 2007 WSOP. Several years ago, he pleaded guilty to a charge of sexually assaulting his own granddaughter. He is expected to compete in the 2008 WSOP Main Event, which begins next month.

(E-mail Tom Somach at tomsomach@yahoo.com.)