One thing you may have heard about during the World Series of Poker this summer was the successful "Ante Up for Africa" charity poker tournament that raised $500,000. The event brought together the stars of poker, professional athletics, and Hollywood, including much of the cast from Ocean's Thirteen in a $5,000 buy-in no-limit hold'em charity poker tournament. The event was cohosted by Annie Duke and Don Cheadle, and it was held in the Amazon Room on July 5, the day before the main event began.
One thing you may not have heard about is that PokerStars generously increased the amount of aid the poker world was able to send to relief efforts in Darfur. "PokerStars made a decision to give $1 million to the Not On Our Watch organization, which was founded by Don Cheadle and other members of the cast of Ocean's Thirteen to support the victims of Darfur, and those monies are going to be channeled into other nonprofit organizations on the ground in Darfur. Our desire to do that is really to begin to reach out more to the humanitarian and social causes that matter the most to PokerStars players," said Susan Lindner, president of Lotus Public Relations, which handles public relations for the PokerStars. "In addition, we ran two tournaments for players online to donate, and to be able to attend the premiere of Ocean's Thirteen at the Cannes film festival, and the L.A. premiere of the film."
"PokerStars as an entity wanted to do this very much, and Joe [Hachem] was kind of our team PokerStars representative to interact with the cast of Ocean's Thirteen," said Lindner. Hachem took a keen interest in the charity efforts on the matter, and he was able to travel to Cannes, France and play some poker with the famous founders of N.O.O.W., as well as exchange ideas about the relief efforts. "The whole focus was on Darfur. We spent most of the time talking about what's going on, where the charity is going, what their next steps are going to be. They're going to be actively pushing this in the future, and PokerStars and Joe Hachem are going to be involved," said Hachem.
Everyone at home can get involved as well. Although the first two charity poker events hosted by the site have already taken place, another charity poker tournament will take place this weekend on PokerStars. For more information on the charity event, click here. It will take place on Sunday, July 22 at 3:30 p.m. ET. It is a $10 buy-in no-limit hold'em tournament w/rebuys, and the first-place prize is a poker felt signed by the cast of Ocean's Thirteen.
Here is what Hachem and some of his philanthropic brethren on team PokerStars had to say about the $1 million donation.
Joe Hachem:
"As a PokerStars team member and someone who has benefited from poker a lot, I thought it was only fitting that we help the cause of Africa and The Not On Our Watch team, which includes George Clooney, Matt Damon, Brad Pitt, and of course Don Cheadle.
"Look, it's great to be able to give something back. You reach a point in your life where you think, my God, how fortunate I am to be in this position, what can we do to help others?
"You have to respect the site for having the integrity to say it's not all about taking…and on top of it, anytime anyone comes up with a charitable event that they want PokerStars involved with, there's never a question. It's always yes we will be involved."
Victor Ramdin:
"As you know, PokerStars just donated a million dollars toward Don Cheadle and the Ante up for Africa [event], meaning the famine in Darfur, so that's a hell of a job by PokerStars."
Barry Greenstein:
"I always like when I see they take some of the money and do something good with it, because, let's face it, these online companies are making billions of dollars.
"I'm glad to see that they didn't give $5,000 or something, they gave a real amount. If online sites start doing things like that, giving away millions of dollars we can make a difference in the world."
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