Poker and Charity

Poker players are not necessarily known for their generosity of spirit (it takes a certain type of character to play a game for a living whereby the object is to remove money from other people who want to remove yours). But with so much money floating about, especially in the field of large buy-in tournaments, some high profile players have been flying the banner for charitable donations from winnings for a while now. Probably the best known donor must be Barry Greenstein, who famously hands over all his tournament winnings to charities, in particular Children, Incorporated, who provide food, clothing, and other necessities for thousands of children in twenty-one countries.

His win at the 2004 Jack Binion World Poker Open totalled $1,278,370, all of which went to charity, gaining him credit from within and outside the poker community alike. He may be an independently wealthy man, but this kind of example can only be a good one. Other players quietly follow this well-publicised practise without stepping into the limelight – I am often surprised by how many famous players quietly admit to donating a percentage of their winnings to one charitable cause or another. To be making big money playing a game that most greatly enjoy is surely a great blessing, and if a little can be set aside for those who have nothing, so much the better.

Here in the UK there have recently emerged a few charitable bodies aimed at encouraging poker players to give to good causes, and one I have been following has been Poker4Charity, a campaign of Game4Life Enterprises Ltd. It was launched in 2004 “as a nonprofit fundraising organization with the aim of uniting the poker world with the common goal of improving the lives of children who are battling illness, fighting disability, are financially deprived or lack a stable home life.” Now Game4Life is a registered charity, one of their recent aims has been to build schools in the area of Sri Lanka devastated by the tsunami in December. An auction for the naming of the school is just one example of the ways in which they encourage participation – poker players seem to be unable to resist bidding for things and there have already been some successful fundraising events.

At the official launch (a black tie event held in central London) we were greeted to the surreal sight of a bunch of poker players more at home in scruffy trainers and jeans dressed to the nines arriving in a stretch Hummer. Surely the only one of its kind in town, it came equipped with not just a bar and seating for twelve, but a fitted poker table complete with cards and chips (not that you had time for a game between pick-up and drop-off). During the ever popular auction, Harry Demetriou offered up some of his time (for lessons, or just a chat) which was snapped up by someone in Scotland (quite a round trip for Harry!), and there was plenty of fighting from the ladies over a signed photo of Daniel Negreanu. The whole idea was to raise awareness of the desperate situation of thousands of people who live in poverty, especially children in deprived areas worldwide.

Academic, critic, poet, novelist, sportsman and poker player Al Alvarez has recently become the first President of the charity Game for Life, and there has been great support amongst the high profile Hendon Mob. Last week, a Game4Life tournament was held in Newcastle, attended by nearly 100 players who travelled from all over the country to take part in the event, including Carlo Citrone, Ram Vaswani, Keith ‘The Camel’ Hawkins and Joe Beevers. Half of the prize pool went straight to the charity, and when I say that that half totalled more than £5,000, and the event was a £10 rebuy no-limit hold’em tournament, you get some idea of the frenzy of buy-ins which took place. A special mention has to be given to Joe Beevers, whose 63 rebuys in an hour and a half smashed all previous records and went a long way towards encouraging others to follow his example. Poker4Charity founder Davey Newth was on the mic encouraging the pre-freezeout madness (“Who wants to see x raise the next hand blind?”) and seemed encouraged by both the turnout and the spirit with which the event was played all round.

It looks like the few tournaments like this that have so far been run in the UK have set a precedent – it is the perfect format to encourage poker players to get involved. This is not a new idea, however: just look at the rise of no-limit tournaments as charitable fundraisers in the past two years. Often with some kind of sponsorship or celebrity involvement, a Media/Charity event added to a festival will have players playing on behalf of their selected charity, with the prize money they win going straight to whichever one they’re representing. If the players are well-known personalities, even better. It’s the one area where I would unequivocally state that Celebrity Poker has been a great addition to the game – someone famous playing the trendy game of poker wearing a T-Shirt with a charity’s name on it gives great exposure to some great causes.

Anything which generates publicity for charities tends to attract them; the more poker appears on TV, the more it will become an arena for such fundraising, and I can’t think of any better way of attracting interest from poker players than one which involves them playing poker. To be able to use the fame which nowadays comes along with being an international top player to do some good for the less privileged people in the world is surely an unexpected bonus, and one which I hope these players will continue to make use of.