Charitable causes benefit from poker involvement

Author: Simon Dexter

It’s a side of poker that rarely makes the news, but that doesn’t mean to say it’s any less deserving of note than those one-sided, anti-gaming rants we occasionally hear.

Over the past few years, there’s been a marked increase in the number of stars who carve out the time to make valuable, little-heralded contributions to charitable causes; some, such as Barry Greenstein, regularly donate a large portion of poker winnings, frequently handing over the entire purse.

Recently, Phil Ivey donated ,000 to the Las Vegas Christian academy, “Empowered 2 Excel” after triumphing in the L.A. Poker Classic. Meanwhile, Tuan Lam, the 2007 WSOP main event runner-up, is helping build a temple in Vietnam, while Phil Hellmuth has helped raise money for fallen police officers.

Closer to home, Dave Ulliott, Joe Beevers and Dave Colclough are amongst the dozens of players involved in ‘Poker4Charity’, while Irish pro Padraig Parkinson has his own charity poker tournament. These guys join a long list of professional players who help promote, show up, sponsor, and play in charity poker tournaments across the country.

Last year, WSOP winner Jerry Yang famously and emotionally undertook to donate 10% of his winnings (including future cashes) to charity after winning more than million in Vegas. Since then, Yang has thrown himself into all manner of charitable work and this weekend, he’ll be amongst the volunteers handing out food to around 4,000 families as part of the Feed the Children campaign. When the threat of a shortfall in the quantity of food that could distributed arose, Yang simply put his hand in his pocket and stumped up ,000. Top man. But what do you expect from a guy that has already given away more than million of his winnings?

Good gestures like these are helping to transform the traditional view of poker players. Join the best online poker community around and enjoy texas holdem poker games online. If texas holdem isn’t your bag, how about a few online omaha poker games instead! It’s all here at Littlewoods Poker.