LAS VEGAS — A judge declared a mistrial Monday in the trial of Greg Chao, a professional gambler accused of brutally killing a fellow poker player in a hotel room, when jurors announced they were deadlocked and could not reach a unanimous verdict.

After more than 17 hours of deliberations, the jury foreman told Judge Michael Cherry, sitting in for presiding Judge Nancy Saitta, that they had reached an impasse and could not convict Chao of the murder of Donald Idiens.

Cherry asked jurors to raise a hand if they believed they could reach a verdict with further deliberations. No one did.

Chao, 31, was accused of killing Idiens, a 53-year-old fellow Canadian citizen he befriended at tables in the Mirage poker room.

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During the two-week long trial prosecutors alleged that Chao borrowed $1,000 from Idiens and then lured him back to the Imperial Palace to ask for more money.

When Idiens refused to loan the money, Chao became enraged and then beat him to death in room 18136 at the Imperial Palace on Dec. 8, 1997, prosecutors theorized. Idiens' battered body was found nearly naked in a nearby stairwell the next morning by hotel maids on a cigarette break.

Prosecutors used casino gaming records to show that Chao was on a losing streak and desperate to make a big score on poker tables to pay off gambling loans to "shady characters" back in Canada.

Investigators found traces of Idiens' blood in room 18136 and Chao acknowledged meeting the man during a week-long stay in Las Vegas.

Casino surveillance tapes put Chao in the room from about 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. on the night of the murder — the time, prosecutors said, when the murder was committed. Prosecutors also presented testimony and evidence that Chao was intent on removing his name from all hotel records before sneaking back to Canada undetected the day Idiens' body was found.

Chao's defense lawyers, however, focused their attack on what they deemed a rushed investigation into a murder that detectives were pressured to solve quickly.

Defense attorneys also used the statements of Idiens' children in the days after he was murdered to portray the land developer as a man whose poker obsession entangled him with shady characters.

During closing arguments prosecutor Pam Weckerly told jurors they had a clear decision between the state's evidence against him and Chao's claims that he was not in his room when Donald Idiens was killed there.

"Either Greg Chao did something horrible that evening in his room, or he is the most unlucky person to ever visit Las Vegas in our hundred-year history."

But several jurors who could not find Chao guilty of murder told lawyers after the ruling that the case wasn't as cut-and-dried as the prosecution claimed.

"We felt the timeline didn't match," said a male juror who asked not to be identified.

The same juror also said that the prosecution's surveillance video evidence showing Chao entering and exiting the Imperial Palace before and after allegedly killing Idiens, and of Chao checking out of the hotel the next morning, didn't help the case. Chao, he said, appeared too calm to have just killed someone, and didn't look to be in a rush to leave or nervous.

The jury appeared to have been in deadlock from the earliest hours of deliberations, which began early Thursday evening.

On Friday morning, jurors sent a note asking for instructions in case of a deadlock, but Judge Saitta told them to continue deliberating.

On Monday morning jurors sent another note, this one reading, "There are other jurors that refuse to consider the evidence and they continue to speculate that others may be involved," in the alleged crimes.

The note was an indication that some of defense attorney Tim O'Brien's closing arguments had an effect. In closings, O'Brien suggested that Idiens asked to borrow Chao's room to meet a "classy lady," was jumped by an assailant working in tandem with the prostitute, and then beaten to death when he tried to fight back. O'Brien, however, offered no evidence that such an event occurred.

The jury foreman described what were sometimes tumultuous arguments for and against Chao's guilt in the deliberation room.

"It was a rollercoaster over three days," the man, who asked not to be identified, said. He indicated that four jurors were leaning toward acquittal.

Several jurors were shocked when prosecutor David Schwartz told them that Chao had several felony convictions, for extortion and attempted kidnapping, among other things, and that he was serving time when he was extradited to the United States to stand trial.

Saitta did not allow the jury to hear about Chao's prior convictions in Canada, but prosecutors could have brought them up had he chosen to testify.

But none of the jurors who voted against a conviction said that hearing about Chao's previous offenses would have changed their decisions.

Schwartz said he thought jurors might have expected too much when it comes to the quality and the amount of evidence prosecutors and investigators can provide during a trial.

"There was no eyewitness to the killing. That always bugs people with all the 'CSI' that they watch."

Chao will remain in custody at the Clark County Detention Center pending further motions and the future retrial. He faces life in prison without the possibility of parole if convicted of murder and robbery with a deadly weapon.