A gang armed with machineguns, grenades and machetes made off with an estimated €250,000 (£225,000) after storming a poker tournament in Berlin.

Their haul was part of a €4.6 million final pot for the blackjack dealing shoecard players taking part in the European Poker Tour international tournament, which had attracted the tennis champion Boris Becker and the British-born author Charlotte Roche. Becker had been among the players but was eliminated before the raid. Several players and hotel guests were wounded when members of the masked gang of six men stormed the Grand Hyatt Hotel near the Brandenburg Gate just after 2pm on Saturday.

“We thought it was some kind of terrorist massacre in the making,” said one guest. “One of the men screamed: ‘Don’t move — we have bombs’.”

The men headed to a room on the first floor of the five-star hotel where the 945 entrants to the poker tournanent turn over cash for chips.