World Poker Tour Launches Charity Initiative

This story was published more than 12 years ago.

The World Poker Tour has announced that it has launched a charity initiative with the goal of raising funds to help worthy causes. The Bwin.party digital subsidiary has also laid down an initial donation of $100,000.

The World Poker Tour Foundation's stated goal on its website WPTFoundation.org is to "influence positive change in the world".

The World Poker Tour Foundation will hold poker charity tournaments with the title "WPT: Playing for a Better World". The first tournament is set to be held a the SLS Hotel Beverly Hills on March 11th. Tickets for the tournament will start at $500 each, with raffle tickets being sold at $100 each.

The tournaments will mix a variety of celebrities and poker professionals. Some of the people participating in the tournament are:

Will Ferrell, Woody Harrelson, Eva Longoria, Maria Bello, Gerard Butler, Don Cheadle, Jeremy Piven, and Joel Madden on the celebrity side.

The poker professionals roster includes: Daniel Negreanu, Dan Harrington, Antonio Esfandiari, Vanessa Selbst, Tony G, Jamie Gold, Maria Ho, Andy Frankenberger, Mike Sexton and Tony Dunst.

Commenting on the launch of the foundation World Poker Tour CEO Steve Heller said “World Poker Tour has always been dedicated to supporting charitable causes, but by establishing WPT Foundation we are making a deep, lasting commitment to philanthropy the likes of which the poker world has not seen before.

“With poker as a platform for an ongoing program and the support of celebrities, our poker player family and fantastic global charities, we’re confident the world will be shown how WPT and the poker community can be an engine for important change in the world, and we’re pleased to fuel that engine with an initial $100,000 donation."

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geGambleMaster
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27 February 2012 - 10:13am
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a great initiative indeed, but it'd be great if "influence positive change in the world" was explained a bit further...