Tournament Trail Q and A -- Jamie Gold

Jamie Gold won the largest poker tournament of all time when he won the 2006 World Series of Poker main event. Before that, Gold was a Hollywood power agent, representing some of the top celebrities in the world. He has now chosen to combine the two worlds that he knows well to help charity.

Gold recently hosted a $5,000 buy-in charity poker tournament to support Children Uniting Nations with his new sponsor Aced.com. The charity poker tournament took place at the Beverly Hilton Oscar party after the Oscar awards ceremony, and Gold sat out of the L.A. Poker Classic to host the event. He sat down with Card Player at the charity tournament to talked about what moved him to support this cause.


Ryan Lucchesi: Tell me about how this charity tournament came to be hosted on Oscar Night at the Beverly Hilton party?

Jamie Gold: Three days ago, I was called by Daphna Ziman, who runs Children Uniting Nations, and she said, 'Listen, I know you’re playing in the LAPC, but I heard that you have a new sponsor that is very generous, Aced.com, and is there any way you would donate money and help us run a charity poker tournament?’ I said sure, we would do that, but I can’t be there, I have to play in the main event. And then, when I talked to Aced, they said, 'No, screw it, you get a million chances to win a poker tournament, you have very few chances to connect.’

My whole life in the past was in Hollywood. I used to be an agent for 20 years, and so this was a great way for me to reconnect with all of my old friends and host the first time that poker has ever been connected to the Oscars. Children Uniting Nations is a mentorship program…through mentor programs, 95 percent graduate high school, and 87 percent of people who are incarcerated are coming from the welfare system. So, it means that most of our criminals did not choose to be there. They had no mentors, they had no parents, they had no guidance, they had no shot, and you or I or anybody could have been out on the street. And what do you do if you can’t eat? You might turn to drugs or crime; it could happen to any of us.

So, this program is amazing; they’re lobbying congress successfully, and they are also donating a ton of money to foster children. I’m so proud to be a part of this, and so when the guys from Aced said they would donate all of this money, then I thought, let’s make this really special, I’ll donate a buy-in to the World Series. I’ll fly them out, I’ll put them up, and I’ll coach them. I don’t think anybody’s ever done that before; I’ll coach the winner through the World Series so they have the best shot at winning. I may not be the best player in the world, but I can definitely help them more than they can help themselves.

RL: What was the involvement of your new sponsor, Aced.com, in this charity event?

JG: A sponsor can say a lot of things and pay me a lot of money, but here they’re actually backing it up. The first week I’m in business with them, they donated money and got behind this cause ,and that’s why I went with them. There are a lot of sponsors out there, but these guys are really dedicated to giving back and giving a portion of their income to charity, which is great.

RL: You have really embraced the fact that you are the ambassador between the poker world and Hollywood with this event. What are some other ways you can perform this role?

JG: The way I think I will make my mark is that poker isn’t truly legalized in America the way that it needs to be, and people still look at it as an underground endeavor. I think it is the monopoly of the 21st century. I believe that everybody plays poker in their home, but they just don’t talk about it. People don’t talk about monopoly, either. It’s a game of skill with elements of chance that people need to know. It’s a game that I love, and if I can use whatever little celebrity I have and all of the success I had in the Hollywood world and bridge the two, it seems like people really wake up and notice things when people are behind them.

I created a new TV show with Sam Simon and Nick Cassavetes, and the producers from Real Time with Bill Maher are going to produce for us, and I feel like that is going to be another great way. It’s poker, celebrities, and charity, it’s called Jamie Gold’s Big Deal. We’re very fortunate, Universal bought out a whole season. I hope my legacy is that I’ve raised as much money for charity as I possibly could; I hope other people do more than I can, and I hope that I really affect change in the world and help poker become more mainstream.

RL: Do you think that celebrity charity poker tournaments can be a way for a lot of people who aren’t convinced about poker to see all of the good it can accomplish and help online poker become completely legal in the United States?

JG: I do. When celebrities get behind causes, people in the media seem to really notice. I think that I have a unique opportunity because of my past relationships; I’ve represented a lot of very famous people, and a lot of my friends became very famous, and it’s just the world that I come from. They all love poker, our private home game has five of the most famous people in the world in it. There’s no reason that poker shouldn’t be legal and it should be a game that everybody enjoys.

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