Time for a major poker charity effort?, requesting opinions..

[Hotel Detect]

I am looking to create a centralized, poker-based charity website that encourages winning players to donate a percentage of their gains to the cause of their choice. I am looking for any opinions on the following plan, as well as volunteers for help (preferably residing in the Las Vegas area).

First a tiny bit about me: I am a 24-year-old guy (soon to be 25, crap). I went to a good college but because of great fortune beyond my doing I do not have a need to work a 9-5 job. Although this is a sweet spot to be in, I find my life lacking direction and I am just generally bored. Despite the boredom, I cannot motivate to get a regular job b/c the financial gains are insignificant. Finally, I came to the realization that I should be doing good works with my time inside of just selfishly playing internet poker all day long. I have sluggishly tried to formulate a plan on how to contribute to the world and I have decided to try and integrate my passion for poker with my desire make a difference.

I come to you to ask your opinion on the following concept… I hope to create a website through my own funding within the next couple months (preferably prior to the WSOP) that aims to integrate information on various charitable poker events, direct donations to various charities (perhaps with a pool of 20 or so to choose from), and poker-based donations from players resulting from online and live-action “scores.” The donations will be tracked and made public or kept private (depending on the will of the contributor of course). At this point, I am envisioning a charitable version of www.officialpokerrankings.com. Hopefully, I will be able to obtain the support of various corporations in this endeavor (i.e., Full Tilt, Harrah’s, PokerStars, etc.), to either offer direct sponsorship/donations (in the form of promotions) or at least advertising/links on their websites. Although in the past I would have assumed corporate participation in this project to be impossible (who wants their rake being siphoned off to a charity?), given the current state of affairs in poker, this project (if at all successful) may give these organizations and the PPA lobbying group a great example of the positive effects of the poker community.

Here are some things that may work in my favor: I have significant connections in the gaming industry that will most likely allow me to put on events in at least some of the major poker rooms around Las Vegas, these connections will also allow me to get into contact with a lot of the top name poker players, I have no job and am willing to work on this project full time, and, lastly, I have the money to fund the building of the website on my own.

Whether or not this project goes through, I am pledging 100% of my poker winnings to charity, with the exception of major 10k events, for which I pledge a minimum of 10% of my winnings (I may up this significantly but I do not want to tie myself into more than 10% at this time). I have played for 3 years and I am fairly low stakes, but at a minimum I will be playing in this years WSOP ME. All internet scores will be 100% going to charity (not sure which one just yet). Are there any others out there that simply play poker for the love of the game (doctors, lawyers, businessmen), are winning players, and wish to contribute significantly to this cause if it comes to fruition? Are there enough players out there that do care about the money involved in their poker wins but are still willing to contribute 1% or so to a good cause? I truly feel there should be a centralized meeting spot for poker charity but I do not want to spend $20,000 on a website that raises $5,000 for charity, thereby doing no good whatsoever.

Anyone’s thoughts and opinions are welcome, if I feel this idea has a good shot then it is off to the races because I am sick of sitting on my ass doing nothing!!!

Thank for reading,
-Brad

Here are some more questions for you all:
1) How much would the website I am describing cost?
2) Do you think there is a chance of corporate sponsorship/involvement?
3) Can you think of any good names for the charity/website URL?
4) Does anyone think there may be write off conflicts with these contributions given the state of poker? (the money transaction issues)
5) Other than tipping strippers $2k, are poker players charitable enough for this to be worthwhile?
6) Does anyone know how to start in the process of legitimizing this website? Should I be seeking outside auditing?
7) Does anyone have recommendations for the structure of this website, or the structure of this charity? Will it be possible to link to other charity websites and still keep track of donation stats?
8) Is someone already doing this in a significant way that renders this project superfluous?

I am sure I have a million more that I will come up with, please PM me any insight, thank you.

[Cornell Fiji]

First of all I would like to say that I applaud your work and I hope that as you make progress you come to these boards for further suggestions.

I have one suggestion for a small scale donation source that I believe I first thought of as a result of a thread here a while back

You should get in touch with the people who run online poker sites and ask for them to allow donations through the use of FPPs. For example for 10,000 FPPs a player can buy a stress ball, 2+2 book, or donate $20 to a charity of their choosing.

If you facilitate the donations then the sites might be willing to go along with this and players will be inclined to make these donations as they aren't giving away real money.

Another way that will make donations easy is if the poker sites allow you to set up an online poker account (an account were not a single hand of poker is ever played) on their site where you can receive funds that are donated to you. It helped our children's inc drive emmensely to be able to transfer money on site and I would venture to guess that, despite begging people to make stars transfers the last resort, over 30% of all donations made were done though interaccount transfers.

I also have several comments that I will make on the business aspect of your questions but I will PM you my views on those issues at a later date. Feel free to PM me your instant messanger name as I will be around all afternoon tomorrow to chat

[Hotel Detect]

[ QUOTE ]
First of all I would like to say that I applaud your work and I hope that as you make progress you come to these boards for further suggestions.

I have one suggestion for a small scale donation source that I believe I first thought of as a result of a thread here a while back

You should get in touch with the people who run online poker sites and ask for them to allow donations through the use of FPPs. For example for 10,000 FPPs a player can buy a stress ball, 2+2 book, or donate $20 to a charity of their choosing.

If you facilitate the donations then the sites might be willing to go along with this and players will be inclined to make these donations as they aren't giving away real money.

Another way that will make donations easy is if the poker sites allow you to set up an online poker account (an account were not a single hand of poker is ever played) on their site where you can receive funds that are donated to you. It helped our children's inc drive emmensely to be able to transfer money on site and I would venture to guess that, despite begging people to make stars transfers the last resort, over 30% of all donations made were done though interaccount transfers.

I also have several comments that I will make on the business aspect of your questions but I will PM you my views on those issues at a later date. Feel free to PM me your instant messanger name as I will be around all afternoon tomorrow to chat

[/ QUOTE ]

These are some awesome ideas.. I would also like to add that I too went to Cornell (as did my father), and he was a Fiji. Heh, small world.

Thanks for the input, I will keep in touch for sure.

[nutfloppa]

How about weekly/monthly private tournaments held by your company on various poker sites. Something like 50% of prize pool goes to charity. Make the payouts top heavy. Try and get the sites to donate the juice or not charge any at all. Maybe even have a list of charities that players can pick from before the tournament starts that they would be playing for.

[Banks2334]

Hotel,
I'm not sure if there is really a market or need for this type of thing. At least from the standpoint of getting "bang for your buck". Perhaps you would be better off picking a favorite charity or cause and spend your efforts there. That being said, you may want to talk to Phil Gordon who has been asking players to pledge money from tournament winnings for his "Bad Beat on Cancer" for the last couple of years. I wish you luck.